Bards are Lame? Hold My Beer Fam
by Jackie Avocado
Summary: Bards are usually the laughingstock of nearly every fantasy adventure, here's the middle finger to that! Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest FANFICTION (SELF-INSERT!)
1. Down The Rabbit Hole (Not Canon)

**So, I've had a love-hate relationship with this story for a while, the concept of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest is really good for an isekai story, but there were some things that were just insufferable. Such as Hajime and Yue relationship at the beginning!  
So, let's do my own retelling of the story, fixing the problems I had with it...WHILE TRANSFORMING IT ONE BIG SHIT POST!**

 **ENJOY YOU DEGENERATES! Also, fucking**

Christ this is the longest chapter I've ever written!

 **Chapter One: Down The Rabbit Hole**

The air wasn't clear, not in the slightest. It smelled of unfairness and smoke, mainly because of the many skeleton warriors that were way above our level...and fire. Particularly, the fire being shot at my face.

 ***RECORD SCRATCH***

Welp, you may be wondering what the actual hell is going on here. Well, hell is going on here, all because some retard, I'm not saying names - COUGH - Hiyama Daisuke - COUGH. But yeah, the fucker basically triggered this sections secret boss, which just so happens to be a Final Fantasy ripoff of Behemoth.

If I get out of this alive, I'll go on his Twitter and spam #YouHadOneJob to constantly rain shame all over his parade. That or just kick him in the balls for acting like an unintentional LEEROOOY JENKIIINNSS! Ah, the tyranny of choice!

Oh yeah, there's a fireball coming right at me. This is going to hurt.

"Fuck!" I shouted as it slammed into my face.

"Hajime!" I heard Kaori shout.

I felt like I got hit with a goddamn soccer ball. Ah, elementary school, you will be remembered only for your trauma.

I honestly expected that to hurt a lot more than it did. The perks of being in a random isekai situation.

Wait, why can't I feel the floor under my feet. Oh, it's over there, about a few meters out of reach.

Fuck.

Okay, which one of these _motherfuckers_ is responsible for this?

Wait, that smug-ass grin, and those needlepoint eyes that give most yanderes a run for their money in the crazy eyes department.

Hiyama Daisuke, I know who you are, I know where you live, and what I have is a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long time of gaming, watching copious amounts of anime, and playing at music concerts for the school. If I get out of this alive, I will find you, and I will spam your Twitter and kick you in the balls, or lock you in the room with speakers blaring the infamous Brown Note, or all three at the same time. That or I'll just kill you, whichever one I'm in the mood for at the time.

Where was I? Oh yeah, falling to my oh so certain doom. Which, disappointingly, I don't mean the 2016 edition. What a great soundtrack.

 **BGM: The Who - Baba O'riley**

You know looking back on it all, it all makes sense now.

Dream big, live big, love big.

Fall to your death down a giant fucking hole, and now I know, which is zero percent of the battle apparently.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I shouted in justifiable fear.

You must be wondering, how did it all get to this point. You must also be wondering why I keep saying 'you must be wondering'. Well to sound smart of course.

Weeeeeeee _llllllllll~!_

 **BGM END**

 **VCR cassette tape rewind noise.**

I was on the public bus going to work, it was Tuesday...fuck Tuesday. And from what my coworkers were saying the sale going on right now was going to make today one _really_ busy day.

The downsides of working retail, my friends.

I heard the sound of a helicopter flying while I was watching the asdfmovie on my phone.

" _The Science Show! Piano! Whose idea was this!?"_

"Hehe," I chuckled.

Suddenly, I heard a crashing noise and then I knew only darkness. Then I heard laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" the gut-wrenching laughter continued. "That was the best thing since I organized the whole Carnival Phantasm thing! The old piano drop gag, of all things! Aaaaaaaaaah ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!"

I looked at the person in front of me having a chortle at my expense with wide eyes.

He was an old man that appeared to be in his fifties, he had gray, gel-spiked hair, he wore a formal Victorian suit and white gloves with a cane in his hands. He was also rolling on the floor in laughter.

"Zelretch?" I asked unsurely. "Is that you?"

"Yes, and again, that fucking piano!" the Wizard Marshal, went into another laughing fit.

I raised an eyebrow. "Were you watching asdfmovie over my shoulder? You're a badass immortal wizard and you haven't seen't asdf movie?"

He stopped and grinned. "Over your shoulder? Boy, I watched the real life thing!"

I crossed my arms confused before it hit me.

"Did that helicopter drop a fucking piano on me!?" I yelled.

Zelretch's grin grew wider. "Yes, and it was fucking hilarious!"

I gave a chuckle too. "Can I see how it happened, it _is_ kind of funny after all."

Zelretch pointed a remote at a large T.V. that appeared out of nowhere and pressed the play button.

I saw as the helicopter flying overhead carried a piano, it was dangling in the air due to being tied with rope. The rope snapped and crashed through the top of the bus I was in, crushing me. Then the bus spontaneously exploded.

After snickering for a few seconds, and turned to Zelretch.

"Why did the bus explode?" I asked.

He crossed his arms. "That's the thing, for some reason, whenever you die, or are about to die, something explodes without any rhyme or reason."

I shrugged. "Meh, seems legit. So, what happens now?"

Zelretch's face split into a beaming grin. "I'm going to throw you into another world!"

I gave him a blank look. "Coolio."

Zelretch gave me a rather perplexed look. "You're being surprisingly calm about this."

"You _know_ how many Self Insert fics I write Mr. Update Eldritch Gamer Already," I said accusingly.

"Fair point, the other versions of myself and I have an annual tradition of throwing people into other worlds, usually Shirou, and the Highschool DxD world," he revealed.

I nodded. "I fucking knew it. So, what world are you throwing me in, RWBY? Sekirei? Monster Girl Quest? Senran Kagura?...Monster Girl Encyclopedia?"

This time, it was Zelretch's turn to give me a blank look.

"Boy, stop giving me ideas, unfortunate souls will suffer, and much debauchery will be had," he said.

"Isn't that a good thing?" I asked.

"Yes, now off you go," he said with a wave of his hand.

"Wait, what world am I going to!?" I yelled.

"Well, I put some thought into it. 'It' being the world, and you being the 'thought.'"

I deadpanned. "Lame."

"Now, as they say, begone, thought!" he exclaimed.

Then I knew only darkness...again. Hello, my old friend.

* * *

 **Seventeen years later**

Honestly, this was not what I was expecting when I got sent into another world. Everything's completely normal.

No magic, no superhumans, no superpowers. Hell, this isn't even a cool science fiction future!

It was still interesting though, surprise, surprise, I was born in fucking Japan. The lewdest nation in the whole wide world. I had no problems with this predicament. Also, Zelretch was nice enough to program moonspeak into my brain.

Thank you my fellow troll in arms! Shall we forever stand above the fuckbois below us!

It's time for high school! For me, this is the second time I'm going through this shit. I used to be a college student dammit, at least the education system over here is a lot better than it was in American, fucking brutal though, but I managed.

So, it's Monday morning right now, to most people this would be would be the most depressing day of the week. To me, it is a day of foreboding, because the next day is Tuesday. I fucking hate Tuesday. All bad things happen to me on Tuesday, including that damn piano.

Oh, shit, I should probably introduce myself, Zelretch is most likely posting this shit on Wattpad of all places, or DeviantArt, so people are going to be terribly confused if I don't introduce myself in the first chapter of this, most likely, train wreck.

My new name is Hajime Nagumo. I'm seventeen, I've got a rather slim build. I've got upper back length black hair with what at first glance seem like bed head on the right side of my head making me look like I'm the pale emo version of TYPE-MOON's Siegfried from Fate/Apocrypha, and as I insinuated, no it's no bedhead, its natural. I love this hairstyle, also, I have brown eyes and am I'm wearing my school's uniform. Brown blazer, dress shirt, tie, brown dress pants. You know, the works.

I look and feel like a tool, specifically a monkey wrench.

I opened the door to my classroom and was greeted by a familiar sight that always brought a small smile to my face. Everyone staring at me with looks of disdain, and disgust.

"Yo, nasty otaku!" I heard one of the students exclaim. "Did you stay up all night to play games again? Was it an erotic game?"

"Ew, so gross!" a female student said, looking at me with disgusted eyes. "Playing erotic games for the whole night is so disgusting!"

Most of the class burst out in laughter at myself being ridiculed, and like always the person who ridiculed me was Hiyama Daisuke.

The bastard had chin-length blond hair that covered one of his eyes, I believe he thinks it makes him look badass. It doesn't. He has an almost permanent arrogant expression on his face that made him look just _that_ more punchable.

I smiled. "And yet I still have the best grades in class. Maybe _you_ should try playing them yourself, who knows, you could learn something."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Learn what?"

"That your ass must be pretty jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth," I said with a straight face.

"What!?" he yelled in outrage.

I raised my hands up in a mock surrender. "Now, now, Daisuke, I want to see things from your perspective, but I just can't seem to get my head _that_ far up my ass."

Hiyama growled, but then stopped and gave an arrogant grin. "At least I'm not a filthy otaku, unlike you."

That was fucking weak, here's how you do things. "Do yourself a favor, and save your breath."

"Why?"

I gave him a condescending smile. "Well, you need it to _blow up your next date!_ "

And with that, the whole class grew silent. Shutdown motherfuckers! This was a daily thing, and it always warmed my heart to see everyone try to pay attention to basically anything else other than me after a good roasting. Hiyama tried this shit every day, he never learned his lesson.

Hiyama angrily stuttered, trying to get a word out, but ended up just glaring at me.

"Nagumo-kun!" my friend Kaori Shirasaki said with a beautiful smile on her face. "Good morning!"

Kaori was basically your typical bishoujo or if you don't speak weeb, it means beautiful girl. She had long black hair with bangs reached her waist, with big, cute, droopy, brown eyes. She also had a pretty nice body for someone her age. She was basically my only friend in the student body. Yeah, that's sad I know.

I smiled. "Morning Shirasaki-san."

Kaori smile turned brighter when I greeted her back. "You're almost late again today, did you stay up all night."

I sighed. "I can't get anything past you, can't I?"

She giggled in response. "The bags under your eyes were a dead giveaway."

My smile grew wider as the rest of the class, who were watching us, stared at me with unforgiving merciless eyes. You see, Kaori here is known as one of the Two Goddesses of this school, and she tends to hang around me a lot. Now imagine having the attention of the one person everyone in the school wants. Yeah, they hated my guts on principle.

That, and they hated me because of my outward love of anime and video games, of which I had no problems expressing, and my rather perverted disposition. Well, it was less of perversion, and more of that I'm far more comfortable with my sexuality and sexuality in general than most of the damn prudes here.

Hey, if you can't be honest with yourself, who can you be honest too? But while most of the students ridiculed me for it, the teachers thought I was a rather funny kid, after all, I hadn't done anything bad. I don't look like Issei Hyoudou, do I? Cause I do not want to end up in a cell for sexual harassment with a cellmate called Tyrone.

" _Why the hell is that pervert otaku close with Shirasaki-san!?"_

" _You're just trouble for Shirasaki-san, back off."_

I could practically hear everyone's thoughts, and they were all so fucking salty, it was hilarious. Despite all of this negativity thrown my way, I refuse to give in! Fuck what they say, I do what I want!

Also, another thing, in this world, my dad is a game developer and my mother is a shoujo mangaka. I've got skills in both fields and I compose a lot of music on my free time. I've helped my mother come up with plots for some of her mangas, but with my sometimes dark and cynical outlook, a good portion of my ideas were thrown out the window. Some of the ideas that she liked were the ones based on (not her or this universe's knowledge) H.P. Lovecraft and Bloodborne, not to mention copious amounts of memes. I didn't always tell people about them either. There would be a Ugandan Knuckles joke in there and the world would never know.

Have I ever mentioned how awesome it is to plagiarize without any way to be caught doing so? Because it is. Ah, the benefits of not having the same pop culture.

The manga we made sold out like hotcakes, it was beautiful.

My father supported my decision to be a music composer. Hell, some of the tracks I made were put into the games he produced. I was even given the opportunity to help with the final boss theme of one of them, and I loved every second of the experience!

Getting back on topic, to be honest, I'm not really sure why Kaori associates herself with me so much. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she has a crush on me or something?

 **BGM: Seinfeld Theme**

"Kaori," I heard from behind me. "Why do you even bother with him?"

Luckily, I do know better.

The two of us turned around to see a trio of students. The origin of the voice at the front.

His name was Kouki Amanogawa, has a badass name, brown hair, a few inches shorter than myself. That and he's got that stereotypical overly kind harem protagonist personality that just seems to draw everyone in. Guy's got enough charisma to make Iskandar from Fate/Zero give him a nod of respect. In a sense, you could call him the perfect man. I call him the perfect idiot, he's the most gullible fuck in the whole world, he also believes that he's _always_ in the right with his messed up sense of justice E.I. he gets hot-headed when he doesn't get what he wants.

Without a doubt, I knew almost every girl in the school gravitated towards him, no doubt Kaori too.

"You really are so kind, Kaori," he said to the girl next to me.

To Kouki's left was Shizuku Yaegashi.

She was a beautiful girl with long black hair tied into a ponytail and red eyes. Black and red are my favorite color combinations, so she already earned points with me because of that. She's Kaori's best friend and won a perfect record in a kendo tournament, she's known as the gorgeous swordswoman throughout the school.

"Good morning, Nagumo-kun," she greeted me. "Cutting it close like always, hm?"

I gave a halfhearted shrug.

To Kouki's right was Ryutarou Sakagami.

The two of us were the same height, six foot two, but the guy was built a bear. He had short brown hair and brown eyes. He acts like your typical energetic muscle-head, but he's extremely loyal to his friends. He's also Kouki's best friend. Ryutarou didn't like me very much since I always come to class looking rather unmotivated and sleepy compared to his hardworking, and determined self.

"Forget him," Ryutarou said. "There's no use talking to some gutless prick."

' _Well, fuck you too, asshole'_ I thought bitterly.

 **BGM END**

Kouki stepped forward. "Nagumo, when are you going to stop fawning on Kaori? She can't give you attention forever."

I just sighed and went to my seat, ignoring him. He doesn't listen to anything I say anyway, best to just ignore idiots like him, too much headache.

I pulled out my smartphone and earbuds about to start listening to some music.

"Eh?" I heard Karoi sound out before hitting my play button. "I'm just talking to Nagumo-kun because I want to."

The dark aura around most of my classmates intensified. The male students gnashed their teeth and stared at me with malicious intent. Hell, I heard Hiyama and his cronies Saito Yoshiki, Kondo Reiichi, and Nakano Shinji talking about where they should take me for a beating during lunch break. Good luck with that, I go to the music room during lunch, no one goes there except myself and a few teachers. They still haven't figured out that's where I go.

' _Ah, your salt, it sustains me.'_ I thought with a smug smile.

"You're too kind, Kaori," Kouki stated.

Kaori gained a confused look. "Eh? Why? I don't see why talking to Nagumo-kun makes me kind."

I pushed play a bobbed my head to the beat of the music, enamored in my own little world.

After a few seconds, I felt someone tapping my shoulder. I turned to my right, it was Kaori. I gave her a knowing smile, I knew what she wanted. I took out one of my earbuds and handed it to her, she always liked listening to music with me. The two of us bobbing our head in sync.

Soon enough our teachers finally came in.

The first one was Aiko Hatayama, she's a rather petite person, almost childlike really, her hair is dark brown as are her eyes.

The other however caused me to check my privilege the first time I saw her in my first year here.

She was a tall, buxom woman with long, wavy purple hair tied in a folded ponytail at the back with two long locks hanging down, framing her face, accentuating her dark red eyes. She was wearing a white, frilly blouse with long long sleeves and a wide neck that revealed a large portion of her bust, including the mole on her right breast, along with a small portion of her black, lacy bra underneath, a short, form-hugging black skirt with a small slit up the right side, black high-heeled shoes, and long, thigh-high, stockings with lacy black garters visible at the edges of the skirt, along with frameless, square glasses.

This was Rin Suzune, I know damn well she's from the Senran Kagura. Is this because I mentioned Senran Kagura to Zelretch?

I fucking _swore_ I was in the Senran Kagura world when I saw her. One: Because I never played a Senran Kagura game. Two: My only knowledge of the universe is from a few reviews, and Three: Looking up some of the girls on the wiki.

Other than that I knew nothing. So, Zelretch's throwing me into a world I know nothing about would qualify for Senran Kagura.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm still deciding on that, I wasn't stuck in a school full of scantily clad kunoichis, and Rin wasn't one either. One less headache for me I'd say.

She was a strict, but fair teacher, who didn't choose favorites in her classes, even with every male sending lecherous gazes her way, myself included. Seriously, there was something wrong with you if didn't check her out at least once. She was also the manager of the school's music club...which I am the only member of.

Yeah, there are a few reasons I can guess why that is.

One: I'm in the club and everyone hates me so they'll do everything in their power to avoid me.

Two: They have no idea Rin is actually the manager.

Three: They _do_ know Miss. Sexy Teacher is the club manager and they stay the fuck away because they know how merciless that woman is. Seriously, woman can strike the fear of God into anyone.

You're most likely wondering how the club is still up if I'm the only member, right? Well, we're technically the most profitable club in the school. How? Well, Rin and I organize concerts with the few music students the school has, and we're very renowned for how amazing we are, tickets get sold out in just a few days. It's ridiculous I tell you. Also helps that I'm at the top of my class.

Also, she's got an amazing voice, angelic really, I could listen to her sing all day. That's why she's always the lead singer, with me singing with her if it's a duet.

The club was held, no surprise here, in the music room. More like a music studio, seriously, why does no one go there dammit!? Well, either way, I spent most of my time after school their during club, both last year and this year. A lot of time in the club was spent just composing new songs for concerts or just talking to each other while I helped her grade papers, it was rather relaxing.

Rin's really good company if you take the time to know her. It's just that her strict teacher persona tends to scare everyone off, probably for the best. She's also been tutoring me after school whenever we get the chance. Why else would you think I've got the best grades in class? It's almost like I'm a Gary Stu, except nearly everyone hates me! ***Seinfeld Theme plays for 3 seconds***

Over the last couple of years, the two of us got rather close, and I mean like _really_ close. The red blush on her face when I catch her staring at me when she thinks I'm not looking. The few secret dates we've been on. The fact that she trusts me enough to give her a full body massage, which I have done mind you, seriously, those H-cups must do a number on her back, kunoichi or not. Not to mention the few makeout sessions we've had over the holidays. It was a Christmas well spent if you ask me.

Honestly, I was kind of confused my she chose me over basically anyone else, I'm the most hated person in the school after all. Well, as it turns out, she explained to me that I'm the only man she has met that actually respects her as a woman, I'm always honest with her, and I don't treat her like a piece of meat. But to be fair, with an outfit like that, what did you expect for the rest of the hormonal teenagers?

I turned to our second teacher and gave her a small smile. I wasn't sure how far she wanted to take our relationship, but it seemed like she preferred this middle ground. Well, for now anyway.

"Good morning, Suzune-sensei." I greeted.

I saw a ghost of a smile grace her lips, not many would see it, but after being with her for so long, I would.

"Good morning, Nagumo-san," she said.

Both Rin and Aiko walked up to the podium in front of the class, both unminding of the unusually tense atmosphere, they'd gotten used to it by now. Time forclass to start.

* * *

My consciousness gradually returned to me as my body remembered it was time for lunch. Yeah, I was sleeping in class, I've been up all night, give me a break. I stretched my arms up and cracked my neck, enjoying the flinches of my classmates as they heard the loud cracks. That never gets old.

 _Growl!_

Shut up! I'll feed you, Goddamn!

I brought out a small lunchbox, there wasn't much food in it, I couldn't really make much in my sleep-deprived state. A few roast beef sandwiches that I finished in just a few minutes. It wasn't much, but it'll get me through the day, and if it wasn't I had some energy drinks in my bag.

Welp, time to sleep again.

My peaceful trip to the land of slumber has interrupted as I heard someone giggle and sit beside me. I opened a single eye to see that is was Kaori.

She smiled at my sleepy form. "Nagumo-kun, it's rather rare to see you in class during lunch, do you want to have lunch with us?"

Tension and silence flooded the room as she asked that. My, my, they're extra salty today.

I gave her a wry smile and scratched the back of my head.

"Thanks for the invitation, Shirasaki-san, but sorry, I already ate all of my lunch," I said while lightly fluttering the plastic bag I used to wrap the lunch.

The tension grew as I tried to gently reject Kaori's invitation. She girl in front of me remained completely oblivious to the rapidly growing dark aura of the classroom.

"Eh!?" Kaori sounded out, shocked. "You only had that much for lunch? You need to have a proper meal! I'll share some with you."

I raised an eyebrow, this was new. She's supposed to have the hots for Kouki, right. I'm mean, he _is_ Mr. Harem Protagonist here after all, not me. So then what's with this poorly veiled flag moment.

I wasn't given time to respond as Kouki and his group walked over.

"Kaori, let's eat together," Kouki said. "Nagumo doesn't seem like he had enough sleep. Do you think I will allow a sleepyhead like him to eat your delicious homemade food?"

Kouki finished with a bright smile.

I felt my eyebrow twitch. Wow, I was raised by my parents in both worlds to respect women. Apparently, this jackass didn't get the memo that you don't treat people like own them.

Naturally, like clockwork, what I found wrong with what Kouki said flew over Kaori's head. She was a bit of an airhead, cute sometimes, but worrisome other times.

Kaori tilted her head cutely. "Eh? Why do I need to get your permission?"

"Pfft..." both Shizuku and I laughed as the words left Kaori's mouth. Talk about getting shut down, and thought what I did before class started was brutal.

I shook my head as I took my earbuds out. Today wasn't too bad of a day.

What could possibly go wrong?

Suddenly a large, pure white, circle with a complex design that looked right out of a fantasy JRPG appeared right under our feet. Almost immediately, everyone's attention in the class was on the rapidly expanding magic-looking circle. The magic circle was glowing brighter by the second.

Everyone, including Rin and Aiko who had been relaxing in the classroom during lunch, stared at the circle in shock of its sudden appearance. I grabbed my bag tightly in anticipation as to what was about to happen.

"Everyone, get out of the classroom now!" Aiko shouted.

Just as the words left my teacher's mouth, the circle's light flickered as if it was about to explode.

Murphy, I hope you fall down three flights of stairs and break both your kneecaps.

The classroom was engulfed in by a bright light. This could only end so well.

I slowly opened my eyes and met with the fact that we were longer in the classroom anymore.

* * *

We were all in a huge hall that I believed were made out of marble, the whole building seemed to be done with a smooth white luster. Huge, beautiful pillars held up the building and the ceiling was dome-shaped. The place looked like a cathedral. My class and I were standing at the top of a pedestal that was in the middle of the hall. Surrounding the pedestal were at least thirty people all in white robes, and on their knees giving prayer with both hands on their chest, they all had some kind of staffs with them. They seemed to be priest, one, that seemed to be about seventy years old, he wore some kind of formal at that made him look like the pope.

The old man spoke. "Welcome to Tortus, our Hero, and his fellow countrymen, We welcome you all. I am called Ishtar Lombard and I am the Pope of the Church of Saints. Please, let's get along."

He presented himself with a smile often associated with nice elderly people. I wasn't buying it for a second. After all, I had read enough Dumbledore bashing fics to know where this was going.

We were moved to some kind of dining room, Kouki's group of four, Aiko, and Rin sat at the head of the table, and I took a seat between Kaori and Rin.

I could tell everyone's minds were in chaos at the situation, myself included to a lesser extent. I had seen enough anime to figure out where this was going, enough to know we might be sent out to war.

When everyone was seated, maids entered the room pushing carts. Not just any maids mind you, these were the beautiful fantasy maids you'd often see in most harem anime, or at a maid cafe. A majority of the class boys stared at the maids because of their adolescent minds, thought the girls were sending them piercing cold glares. The maid went around the table serving drinks to the class.

I, on the other hand, took my laptop out of my bag, which thankfully came with me to the other world, and turned it on, might as well put the finishing touches on this piece while I wait for Ishtar to explain what in the fuck is going on here.

"Thank you," I kindly said to the maid that served me my drink.

The maid gave me a nod and a professional smile before leaving.

I took a sip, it was wine, damn good wine, but I wasn't really much of a drinker. I guess I'll make due, I don't want to get hammered though.

I turned my attention back to my laptop and brought up some sheet music that I was nearly finished with the day before. In all honesty, this was the only way of coping with the situation at hand.

"Is that the new piece you've been working on, Nagumo-san?" Rin asked in her usual, seemingly emotionless tone, the busty purple haired bombshell looked over my shoulder and at the music sheet on my screen. "Fly Me to the Moon? This is a new one."

"Hm, is that sheet music, Nagumo-kun?" Kaori asked as she also looked over my shoulder.

As Kaori and Rin expressed interest in what I was doing Kouki and the rest of his group gathered around me all looking at the sheet music with shocked expressions on their face.

"T-That unenthusiastic guy made something like _this!?_ " Ryutarou nearly yelled.

"That's rather impressive, Nagumo-kun!" Shizuku said with an approving smile.

"Did you really make this, Nagumo?" Kouki asked disbelievingly.

I gritted my teeth as the more people gathered around me, the only thing not making me shout at them was Rin, she lightly squeezed my knee under the table, away from everyone's prying eyes. As I said before, as a teacher, she was resolute in not picking a favorite student in her classes, but right now none of us were in school, and we were both on edge. Sometimes I think she knows me better than I know myself like right now, she could tell when I'm upset even when I don't show it on my face.

I took a deep breath. "Yes, thank you, and yes. I've been working on it all week, why do you think I come to school looking like a zombie, it's because this keeps me up at night."

Looks of disbelief crossed Kouki's and Ryutarou's faces. Kaori and Shizuku gave me looks of understanding as if they had finally solved a complicated puzzle.

At that moment, Ishtar cleared his throat and begun his explanation.

So, here's the situation.

The world we're in is called Tortus. There are three major races here. Humans, Devils, and demi-humans. Humans rule over the north area, Devils rule the south, and Demi-humans kept to themselves in the wilderness to the east.

With no surprise whatsoever, the Humans and Devils have been at war for several hundred years. Devils were much stronger than humans, but humans the advantage in numbers, and both sides haven't had any large-scale wars in the last few decades, but they're preparing themselves. Recently there've been abnormal incidents occurring. The deployment of monsters by Devils.

Monsters are said to be a variant of wild animals that took in magic and changed. They're not considered real living organisms once labeled monsters. Monsters have the power to mimic peculiar magic that other races have used, and this makes them very powerful and dangerous animals.

Until now very few people could tame them. Even then, the tamer could only control one or two of them at most. Then the Devils gave the middle finger to this rule, which means that the humans are outnumbered and were facing a huge crisis.

"The one who has summoned you here is Eht-sama." Ishtar explained with a very rapt expression. "He is the god that protects us and the one we worship in the Church of Saints. He is the one that created this world. Most likely Eht-sama realized that if things remained this way the Humans would face destruction. For this reason, you were summoned to avoid this grim future. The world you come from is higher ranked than ours, the people from your world would have exceptional power here. Before the summon, we prayed to Eht-sama. You were the 'salvation' that he sent. With your powers, we will overthrow the Devils and save humanity by the will of Eht-sama!"

He was most likely recalling what the oracle had told him. More than ninety percent of the humans here followed the teachings of the Church, those who have heard the oracle are often assigned to a position of power.

I sighed as I leaned back into my seat and took another sip of my wine.

This was all really suspicious, not that a god summoned us, whether they did or not doesn't matter. Did they even have a way to send of back home? Hell, the war was suspicious as fuck too, we were given the bare-bones details, why were the Humans and Devils at war in the first place? That was never explained to the class.

Aiko slammed her hands down on the table in rage.

"Don't joke around! These are children you're trying to force _your_ war on! I won't allow such a thing! I refuse to do so!" Aiko yelled. "Please let us go home! Surely their families are worried about them! What you've done here is nothing more than kidnapping!"

Aiko was very angry...which was adorable since she was basically a loli. She was four foot nine in terms of height. We often called her Ai-chan, even when she got angry at us for doing so, it was adorable.

Some of the student's, moved by Aiko's words stood up for her against Ishtar's unreasonable demand.

They were shut down when he said just two sentences.

"I sympathize with your feelings. Unfortunately, we have no way to return you."

 _Fucking wot?_

Silence filled the halls as I felt my eyebrow twitch in frustration. Seriously, you've got to be fucking kidding me!

This time it was Rin's turn to express her rage, but in the only way, she knew how. She sent him a look, not just any look, The Look, properly capitalized and trademarked. The very same look at expressed how absolutely livid a woman was. The Look, trademark, didn't outwardly express rage through a facial expression, it was shown through their eyes. I had no doubt that Ishtar was being shown Hell itself in those eyes of her's.

"What do you mean it's not _possible_ to send us back?" Rin asked in a tone colder than ice.

Ishtar gulped audibly. "A-As I said, it was Eht-sama that summoned you. The magic he uses is not something we human can perform. Whether or not you can return is all up to Eht-sama to decide."

At that, both Rin and Aiko dropped into their seats as if they were puppets that had their strings cut. Soon after the reality of the situation finally sunk in for everyone, the students began panicking and shouting denials.

I shook my head and sighed, looked like I was the only one taking the situation well. After all, I was a reincarnation courtesy of Zelretch. Not to mention of all the Self-Insert fanfiction I've read...and written.

While everyone was having their own little panic attack, I observed Ishtar, the old man calmly watched the panicking students. Behind his calm expression, I saw contempt for us. I bet he thought that we should feel honored to be summoned by whoever the fuck Eht-sama was. Fucking religion, you always have to watch out for those damn religious nutjobs in other worlds.

My attention turned to our cookie cutter Shōnen anime protagonist, Kouki, who stood up and slammed the table with a bang. With that, he effectively got everyone's attention.

"Everyone, there's no reason to make so much of a ruckus in front of Ishtar-san." Kouki said, his EX Ranked Charisma already working its magic. "He had nothing to do with how we got here. Me, I'm going to fight. The humans of this world are facing a crisis, this is a fact. Knowing this I cannot ignore their pleas for help. If I was summed here to save humanity, we might be able to return after we save them. Ishtar-san, how about it?"

Ishtar nodded. "Right, Eht-sama will answer the wishes of the Saviors."

The other students gained looks of hope at that.

"We all have special powers, right?" Kouki asked. "Since I came here I've been feeling this sense of power."

"Yes, that's right," Ishtar stated. "Roughly each of you have power that is several times higher than the people from this world."

"Then it's okay. I'll fight. I'll save these people, and then we can all go home. I'll save this world and everyone, you'll see!" Kouki gripped his fist as he declared this.

I deadpanned at him. If that ain't Shōnen, I don't know what is.

Vainly, Kouki showed a bright smile that sparkled...no I'm not kidding, his smile sparkled. At that point, I looked at my cup of wine with a scrutinizing gaze and pushed it away from me.

The student that earlier had expressions of despair began to regain their calmness and vigor. Kouki's eyes seemed to shine brightly seemed to have found hope in this situation. Hell, half of the schoolgirls sent admiring glances at him.

I heard Ryutaro chuckle. "I thought you would say something like that. I'll fight too, I'd worry about you if I let you do it by yourself."

"Ryutaro," Kouki said with a grateful smile.

"It's we can do right now." Shizuku sighed. "It's not like I hate it though, I'll fight too."

"Shizuku," Kouki said.

Kaori perked up. "Eh, if Shizuku-chan is going, I'll try my best."

"Kaori," Kouki said.

I sighed as the usual group of four agreed with Kouki. The rest of my classmates soon joined with them. Aiko and Rin tried arguing against their discussion, but with no success. Kouki's display was just too effective.

It seemed that everyone was going to participate in the war. We were kids, technically I was thirty-five years old due to die in my past life at age eighteen, but still, we were being urged to fight a war that wasn't our own. None of my classmates got what war truly meant, they were just fantasizing about it, I knew it. War was a horrible thing, looking at all of my fellow classmates here, cheering and raising their cups in a toast to Kouki's speech.

I wasn't cheering, I just looked at them with a solemn gaze. I've never experienced war personally, but I knew if war was anything like it was back home not many of us would make it, and I doubt any of us would come back the same person we once were.

I looked at Ishtar once more, the pope had a very satisfied expression on his face. I noticed that when he was giving the explanation he was observing Kouki, he must have strung his story in the way that would appeal to Kouki the most. With his strong sense of justice, it would have been child's play to manipulate him. Tell him about the tragedy that befalls humans, and the ruthlessness of the Devils, making sure to emphasize their cruelty. Now Kouki was practically in the palm of Ishtar's hands.

My hair shadowed my eyes, and an empty smirk made its way onto my face. I had to give Ishtar props for this one.

"Tch, clever bastard," I muttered under my breath.

* * *

Since basically everyone basically agreed to fight in the war, we would need to learn how to fight. Good call on their part, it wouldn't be good if you just sent untainted high school students to an early death.

Ishtar explained a few things to us. The church we were summoned in was located on God's Mountain and at the foot is the Hairihi Kingdom, the kingdom has a very close relationship with the Church. The god that they worship was the God of Creation Eht and this country was founded by the family of Charm Byrne.

We were all lead to the front gate of the church. We were about to descend the mountain and visit the Hairihi Kingdom. The church in question was located at the summit of God's Mountain. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that magic was the only reason that the church was made into a comfortable living environment.

Using some kind of large, magic, floating pedestal, we all safely descended the mountain and made our way to the Royal Place.

We were ushered into the throne room straight away. We walked through the corridors and I couldn't help but notice the beauty of the decorations. Along the way, we saw some knights and maids, a fully uniformed, and looking at us in awe. Looks like we're popular around here.

When we entered the throne room my eyes trailed up the luxurious red carpet that led to the even more luxurious throne. On the throne sat a middle-aged man whose eye conveyed ambition and dignity. There was a woman next to the throne, she seemed to be the queen. Next to her was a ten-year-old boy with blond hair and blue eyes. Next to the boy was a beautiful girl that seemed to be about fifteen to sixteen years old, and accompanying her was a small girl that seemed to be eight years old. Civil officers and military officers were on both sides of the carpet.

Our group stopped while Ishtar proceeded next to the King. The King lightly kissed the Pope's hand as a sign of respect. Apparently, the Pope was top dog here. This confirms my suspicions, the country was run by "God", this wasn't good at all.

The Kingdom's royalty then introduced themselves. The King's name was Erihido S. B. Hairihi. Luruaria the Queen, Randell the prince, first princess Liliana, and second princess Maribelle. After that more and more important people of high status introduced themselves to us. Also, it seemed that Kaori's charm was universal because the young prince was gazing adoringly at her. I could tease her about it later, that would be fun.

After the introductions were finished, a banquet was held and we were able to enjoy this world's cuisine.

The young prince seemed to take a liking to Kaori because he was often talking to her, and this got on the nerves of nearly every boy in my class. I didn't expect much of a chance for the boy, he was ten, after all, that and Kouki was here.

Later we were introduced to the instructors that would train us. They would also provide us shelter, food, and clothing. The instructors were handpicked for the Knights, Imperial Court Mages, and much more. A smart decision for sure, pick the best of the best to train your high school super soldiers.

The next day began our training and lectures.

First, we were all given a rectangular silver plate about the size of your average smartphone.

Knight Commander Meld Loggins was a tall man with wild brown hair and a stubble across his jawline.

He stood in front of us as we looked at the plate curiously.

"Great, did everyone get one?" Meld asked. "These plates are called Status Plates. Literally, these plates will show your stats and status in a numerical form. The plate also serves as an identification card. As long as you have this you cannot get lost, so don't lose it."

We all nodded in acknowledgment.

"Just take the needles we gave you and spill a drop of blood on the plates." Meld instructed. "The Status Plate will then register you as it's owner. Just say 'Status Open', and the plate will display your stats. Hm, you've never heard of such a thing?" Meld scratched his head sheepishly. "Didn't know that. This kind of artifact is from ancient times."

"Artifact?" I heard Kouki ask.

Meld took a lecturing pose. "The artifact is a powerful tool that cannot be reproduced with modern means. It is said that they were created when God and his family still roamed this land. The status plate is one of the artifacts he left behind that cannot be reproduced. It would usually be called a national treasure rather than an artifact, but it is distributed to the general public due to it being a very convenient ID card."

I nodded in understanding as I poked my finger with the needle, flinching at the pain, and smeared my blood onto the plate, it shined red for an instant then displayed my status.

Name: Hajime Nagumo

Level: 1

Age: 17 Years Old

Gender: Male

Class: Bard

Strength: 10

Vitality: 10

Resistance: 10

Agility: 10

Magic: 10

Magic Resistance: 10

Skills: Language Comprehension, Bardic Inspiration, Song of Rest, War Song Strike, Vicious Mockery.

I stared at my status plate in muted shock, mostly at the class. A deranged grin, that caused most others to take a few steps away from me, made its way onto my face.

"Boi, got killed by piano, get Bard," I said still grinning.

This was going to be good!

"For you guy's information, the people of this world start out with stats at ten points average." Meld certified.

Well, that's disappointing, but it does make sense since I'm a Bard. Time to make half races that nobody's ever even dreamed of!

"Although you come from a better world and have zero combat experience, I'm sure your stats are several times higher than that!" Meld exclaimed.

I'm not even going to go into the specifics of how wrong the sentence was.

"Report to us the contents of your plates, understand?" Meld commanded.

Kouki was first on the uptake. "Sir! Amanogawa Kouki, Class: Hero. My stats are all one hundred. My skills are...many!"

Yeah, it's official, Kouki's fucking broken. GM, Zelretch, whoever's listening, nerf this hacker!

"Hey, Nagumo," I heard Hiyama call out as he placed his hand on my shoulder, "I wanna see yours."

Before I could react, I had my status place snatched out of my hands. The jackass looked at my stats for a few seconds before laughing hysterically.

"What the fuck, this is shitty!" Hiyama exclaimed while laughing. "What are you, an average creep!? Meld-san! What's a 'Bard?'"

"It's a support class that appears to be someone who utilizes magic and elicits emotional and performance responses through song," Meld explained as if he was reciting from a textbook. "There's not really much information on the class since it's a _very_ small minority in Tortus. That and in all cases of those who try to be Bards have absolutely no idea what they're doing."

"Said like a side character in a card-game anime…" I muttered.

Hiyama and his cronies began laughing.

"His magic stat is complete shit!" Hiyama stated. "I bet you can't even play for shit!"

"I bet he's tone deft," one of Hiyama's cronies said. "His singing would make my ears bleed!"

Aiko and Rin stared at Hiyama and his group, their eyes narrowed in disappointment and anger. It looked like they were about to come over and give them a piece of their mind before I made the first move.

I tsked and snatched my plate out of Hiyama's hand.

"Hey!" I hear him shout in outrage as I walked to Meld.

"Excuse me, Meld-san," I called out.

"Yes?" the knight in question inquired, a bit put off by my irritable expression.

"Do you know where I can find any musical instruments?" I asked.

"I think I remember seeing a guitar in the armory," he said as he held his chin.

"Why was there a guitar in the armory?"

He paused. "I have no clue. Anyway," he pointed to one of the knights he a brought with him. "You! Bring the guitar here on the double!"

"Yes, Sir!" the knight exclaimed as he ran like the Devil, wait, no, _a_ Devil, was on his heels.

"Thank you, Meld-san," I said gratefully to the Knight Commander.

He smiled and patted me on my shoulder. "No problem, anything else I can help you with?"

"Yeah, can you get Daisuke executed?" I asked rather loudly. The majority of the class turned to stare at me. Rin gave me a disapproving look.

"What? No. If you have a problem with him, sort it out yourselves," Meld responded, scowling.

"I should have known it would be too easy," I muttered. "Welp, how about explaining magic."

"That, I am actually willing to do," he said in deadpan then took on another lecturing pose. "Magic from within the body is utilized with an aria and magic formation. The magic will then proceed through the magical formula in the magic formation to achieve the results. Unfortunately, there is no way to directly manipulate magic in its base form, so you must correctly set up the magic formation you want to use. Also, the amount of magic is directly related to how long the incantation last. All spells take a seven-inch magical formation to cast, the basic concepts are: attribute, power, range, scope, and mana usage, all of this is required, but other things such as inductivity and sustain duration can be added to create stronger magic."

I nodded in understanding. "Are there any books that can give more detailed explanations and images of what the formulas look like?"

Meld grinned and nodded, he motioned one of the mages that came along to help with training us over. The mage gave me the basic rundown on how to make magical formulas and helped me make one right then and there. It was actually kind of easy.

After the mage left, Aiko and Rin walked up to me. They still had disapproving looks on their faces.

I sighed. "Look, I'm sorry for trying to get Daisuke executed, you know how he gets on my nerves all the time."

Rin sighed. "I understand Nagumo-san, but try to keep your temper under control next time, I don't want any of you to get in trouble here."

"I know, I know. So, what classes did you two get?" I asked.

Aiko handed me her Status Plate first.

Name: Aiko Hatayama

Level: 1

Age: 25 Years Old

Gender: Female

Class: Farmer

Strength: 5

Vitality: 10

Resistance: 10

Agility: 5

Magic: 100

Magic Resistance: 10

Skills: Language Comprehension, Soil Management, Soil Restoration, Range Cultivation, Growth Stimulation, Selective Breeding, Plant Appraisal, Fertilizer Production, Mixture Development, Auto Harvest.

I gave her a blank look. "I should have never given you my copy of Friends of Mineral Town."

Aiko narrowed her eyes at me, trying to be as intimidating as possible, which only made her look cuter.

"Don't you dare try and take my precious from me." she hissed.

I patted Aiko's head. "Yes, Hatayama-sensei, I won't take your precious away from you."

Aiko pouted as she tried to swat my hand away with little success. Rin handed me her card next.

Name: Rin Suzune

Level: 1

Age: 25 Years Old

Gender: Female

Class: Kunoichi

Strength: 35

Vitality: 58

Resistance: 25

Agility: 125

Magic: 50

Magic Resistance: 22

Skills: Language Comprehension, Stealth, Sneak Attack, Acrobatics, Shadow Step, Shadow Clones, Poison Specialist, Pinpoint Accuracy, Seduction, Outfit Change, Solid Snake Box, Presence Concealment.

My brain stopped when I read her class name. "I am not surprised in the least. Also, it says here that the Seduction skill is the upgraded version of Charm, which means that your skill leveled up before we got here."

I gave her a teasing smile that made her blush and fidgets in place. She pushed her glasses up and decided that the clouds were rather interesting to her at the moment.

Both Aiko and I gave each other knowing look and were about to tease her some more when the knight that was sent to retrieve the guitar came back.

The knight nodded to me respectfully and handed me the guitar.

"Thank you kindly, Sir," I said gratefully.

"No trouble at all," he said as he went to join the other knights.

It was a basic, six-string acoustic guitar, I could work with this. I took a nearby chair and set it down over the magical formula circle, and sat down. I rolled my eyes as I heard a good portion of my classmates mocking me as I tuned the instrument to my liking.

I took a glance at Aiko and Rin. Aiko was clearly excited to see hear what I'd play since she had been at most of the concerts that Rin and I had organized. Rin, on the other hand, gave me a small smile as the light reflected off of her glasses.

"It's a good thing I memorized the song by now," I muttered as I turned my attention to my classmates. "Alright, this is a song called Fly Me to The Moon."

With Meld's and the Mage's explanation of magic, I poured my mana in the circle, making it glow blue and activated my skill Bardic Inspiration, which gives a different effect depending on the intent of the song.

 **Song: Fly Me to The Moon - Sungha Jung**

All of the mockings stopped as soon as I began the intro of the song. My fingers gracefully slid across the fretboard as I plucked the strings with perfect timing.

I glanced at the knights, Meld looked at me in awe. Were good musicians _really_ that rare in this world? I finally began the main melody and began singing.

 _Fly me to the moon  
Let me play among the stars  
Let me see what spring is like  
On a, Jupiter and Mars  
In other words, hold my hand  
In other words, baby, kiss me_

I glanced at my classmates, they were in shock and awe just at the first verse. Yeah, that's right, the "nasty otaku," is awesome! Kouki's group was one of the biggest sources of my satisfaction right now. Kouki and Ryutarou looked like they couldn't believe their own eyes and ears.

 _Fill my heart with song  
And let me sing forever more  
You are all I long for  
All I worship and adore  
In other words, please be true  
In other words, I love you_

Shizuku gave me an impressed look as she bobbed her head to my voice and guitar skills. Kaori, well, she had hearts in her eyes. I'm not kidding, literal hearts, and she was blushing like no tomorrow. Holy shit, she actually has the hots for me!

 _Fill my heart with song  
Let me sing forever more  
You are all I long for  
All I worship and adore  
In other words, please be true  
In other words, in other words  
I love you_

As I ended the song I looked at my classmates, the vast majority of them looked like they had just swallowed the biggest lemon of their lives, especially Hiyama. Most of the girls had light blushes on their faces, and most of the guys gave a look of begrudging respect.

"Pretty good for a for a 'nasty otaku', eh?" I said with a condescending smile none of them were willing to meet my gaze after I spoke that.

"Nagumo," I heard Meld call out.

"Yes, Meld-san?" I asked.

He grabbed my shoulders and shook me back and forth with a beaming grin. "That was incredible! Is this the kind of music in your world!?"

I dropped the guitar and grabbed his arms to make him stop shaking me. "Calm the hell down, man! But yes, kind of, I mean I only finished making this song yesterday."

"Wait," Kouki said. "This was the song was the sheet music that you showed us on your laptop?"

That seemed to get the attention of the whole class, oh boy.

Ryutarou spoke up next. "Then does that means Nagumo has been working hard on that song for the past week!?"

I was about to answer him when Rin spoke for me instead.

"Yes, Sakagami-san, Nagumo-san has been hard at work on that piece, just as he's done with all of his other pieces," Rin explained.

"Other pieces?" Kouki asked, not being familiar with typical musical slang. "You mean Nagumo has made _other_ songs?"

Rin's usually emotionless gaze never changed except for the slight twitch I noticed on her eyebrow.

"Yes, Amanogawa-san," Rin said, unlike everyone here I could _feel_ the razor sharp edge of her voice. "As the sole member of the Music Club, Nagumo-san is always hard at work at making new songs and performing at our school's frequent concerts."

"Concerts?" Shizuku asked?

Rin nodded but sighed. "I'm surprised that haven't heard of them yet, our school is rather famous for them."

I started tuning out the conversation as I started playing with my new guitar. I noticed that Kaori moved rather close to me, just watching me play whatever came to mind. I played a few songs by Muse and a few others, everyone thought they were original songs. Have I mentioned how awesome it is to live in a world with an also completely different pop culture when you're making music?

Kaori kept listening to me play and sing, I think she _really_ liked it when I played Koi no Yokushiryoku (Love Deterrence) from Metal Gear Solid V and sung the lyrics from Peace Walker.

Hiyama and his little gang decided to glare at me with some of the other students, mostly because I had Kaori's attention.

I smiled, it's like we never left our world in the first place.

* * *

 **Two weeks later**

It was night, I was in my cabin, all of us were assigned one after the first day of training. Over the past two weeks, I had basically locked myself in the library to gain more knowledge about the world we're in. It didn't paint a very kind picture of our circumstances.

"Hajime," I heard a voice call from behind me.

"SHIT!" I yelled startled by the sudden voice and spun around quickly.

I let out a sigh of relief at the sight of Rin. The woman in question smirked at my expense.

"Jesus, Rin, you nearly gave me a heart attack," I complained. "I didn't even hear you come in."

"Sorry, just testing how good my sneaking skills are," she said in a teasing voice.

Rin would only act like this with people she was comfortable with E.I. Aiko and I. Rin and Aiko were childhood friends.

I shook my head. "Well, you came here at a good time, I've been reading up on this world's history. It's not looking out to be very good."

I saw her glance at the large pile of books on my desk. "How bad?"

I took a deep breath. "Basically, the world was created by the god Eht using some sort of ancient magic. The magic we see today is inferior to those of ancient times. The Demi-Humans, who live in Hartzena Forest, are highly discriminated against due to not having any magical power at all. And the reason why this war is being fought in the first place is that the Devils worship a different God than humans do."

Rin's irritation was expressed clearly on her face. "Tch, being made to fight in a war for such a stupid reason..."

"We've done worse in our world, much worse," I stated. "Yeah, for the most part, all of the world's races tend to keep to themselves. The Demi-Humans just want to be left in peace."

Silence permeated the room, we had all be training to get our stats up, I had little luck in that regard, my progress was abysmal. I was scared honestly, we were going to war and I had no idea how I was going to cope with that. But I was a support class, I wasn't going to be put in the front lines, so that was good.

I was brought out of my musings as I felt Rin's arm encircled me from behind, as well as her large breasts press themselves onto my back.

"Hajime~." Rin practically purred right next to my ear.

Oh boy, I haven't heard her talk like this since last Christmas.

"Y-Yeah?" I stuttered as I felt my face heat up, she knew me well enough to know just what buttons to push. This woman was not good for my heart, loved her anyway!

"We haven't seen each other in two weeks." I could see her pout in the corner of my eye, a pout that cute has no right to be on a face that sexy. "You've made me feel rather loney~."

I felt my heart race faster. "Really now, anyway I can make it up to you."

I felt her dainty fingers gently grab my chin and turn my face towards hers. I found myself lost in her beautiful, half-lidded, red eyes.

"I can think of a few ways~," she said with a suggestive smile.

Our faces slowly came closer and closer together, our lips nearly touching when…

 _Knock! Knock! Knock!_

I hear knocking on my cabin door.

Both Rin and I look at the door as if it were Rebel scum.

"Nagumo-kun, are you still awake? It's me, Shiaraski. Can I bother you for a moment?" the two of us heard.

Immediately, the sight of Rin was replaced by a cardboard box. How did she even do that as fast as she did? I looked at the box for a few more seconds before answering.

"Yeah, sure, give me a second, I'll be right there," I said.

I walked to the door and unlocked it, allowing Kaori to come in. She happily entered the room and sat on the edge of my bed while I sat on at the table. Thank my lucky stars she didn't question the random cardboard box in the room. Kaori was wearing a snow-white negligee which looked rather good on her.

"What's on your mind?" I asked while getting out my laptop. "Is it about tomorrow, we're going into the dungeon, right?"

We were heading into the Orcus Dungeon first thing in the morning. It was a large labyrinth that consisted of one hundred levels. It's one of the Eight Great Dungeons, the lower you go, the stronger the monsters become. Still, from what Meld told me, it's a very popular place for mercenaries and adventurers. It was also a great training ground for recruits.

Kaori took a deep breath. "Yes, Nagumo-kun...I want you to stay in town."

I blinked, not fully processing what she just told me.

"What?" I finally asked.

"I-I had a nightmare," she confessed. "You kept going farther and farther away...I couldn't keep up, and then..."

I raised an eyebrow. "Then?"

She looked at me with a teary expression. "...You disappeared."

I was silent for a few seconds. "I see."

That was rather ominous to be quite frank. I should be more conscious from now on, but I need something to reassure her. If I say "It's just a dream," not only will I look like an asshole, I'll jinx myself, not to mention Kaori's one of the few people that I like in my class.

"Well, that's cause for concern, but we've got Meld supervising us through it, and not to mention that Kouki's stats and skills are broken beyond belief, seriously, he doesn't even need to use magic formulas, just the aria."

Kaori giggled at my little rant, but then looked down sadly. "Still, I'm worried."

I leaned back in my chair and gave her a small smile.

"How about this," I began getting her attention. "We'll protect each other."

Kaori looked up at me surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Shirasaki-san, I'm a Bard, you're a Healer. We've both got pretty good support classes. But as we've seen my progress in raising my stats have been, well, horrible. But you can heal me when I get injured, and I can boost you up with my Bard skills. We can both help and protect each other. I know we'll be fine if we do that, so, how about it?"

Kaori just stared at me for a few seconds before she started to smile.

"You never change, Nagumo-kun." Kaori said.

I blinked. "What?"

She laughed at my confused expression. "Nagumo, you probably think we first met in high school, but I've known you since our second year of middle school."

Wait, what!? I don't have a single memory of ever meeting her before high school. Think, brain, think! Did I ever meet her before high school?

Nope, I got nothing! Brain, you have failed me!

"It was a one-sided meeting," Kaori explained. "The first time I saw you, you seem more worried about protecting yourself instead of looking at others at the time."

Protecting myself, what does...she...mean...oh.

My eye widened as I remember what event she was talking about.

"Looks like you remember," she said while looking to the side sheepishly.

I gave a low whistle. "Yeah, it wasn't what I'd call my shining moment, but I'm just glad everything worked out in the end."

"Why did you do it?" Kaori asked.

I glanced at the box Rin was hiding in and saw it shift slightly as if she was telling me "Get on with it!", I sighed.

"Honestly, I don't know, I just acted." I shook my head and smiled in nostalgia. "That kid and his grandmother just looked so scared when that punk started harassing them, him and his group started yelling at them and they looked so terrified."

"But why didn't you do anything!? They beat, spit on you, you were bleed badly, I saw it!" Kaori yelled with tears in her eyes.

Good God, she watched through all of it!? I glance at the box again, feeling a large amount of killing intent that Kaori was oblivious to.

"I didn't do anything because they were riddled with disease!" I exclaimed comically. "That and the grandmother was calling the police, so I was stalling."

I sighed and hung my head. "Christ almighty, to think you had to see such a nasty sight."

"I-It wasn't a nasty sight." I raised my head back to Kaori, she gave me a gentle smile free from contempt and ridicule. "When I saw you like that, I thought you were strong and kind."

I gave her a confused look. "How so?"

"It's easy for strong people to solve their problems through violence. I know Kouki would have rushed in and beat those guys up," she said with a rather disappointed sigh. "But I don't think there are many people who would help others even when they're not strong. Especially someone that would be willing to endure such pain for the sake of others even when they're not strong."

Kaori started trembling. "At the time I was afraid, no, I was terrified. I just froze the moment I saw blood, I just couldn't move. I just stood there as you were being beaten. I just kept wishing that I was someone strong like Shizuku, but I stood there and did nothing!"

Kaori had actually broken down and started sobbing.

My eyes widened to their fullest.

How do I even begin to respond to that!? To have her witness something that horrible at such a young age, and she blames herself! Hell, it sounds as if she's had nightmares about it!

I had no idea what to do, but that choice was taken out of my hands as soon as it was there.

Kaori got up from my bed and walked up to me, she held the sides of my face while looking down at my face with tears streaming down her eye. She had, what I could only describe as, the most loving smile I had ever seen.

"E-Ever since that day," Kaori began. "Nagumo-kun, you are the strongest person in my heart."

She then straddled my seated form and began crying into my shoulder, gripping my shirt tightly.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." she apologized again and again.

Once again I was at a loss for words. Did it really mean that much to her to feel such guilt? Did I mean that much to her?

I hugged her gently, she froze at my touch. After a few seconds, the words finally made it out of my mouth.

"I forgive you," I said at long last.

Kaori started crying again. "Thank you."

She stopped crying after a few minutes. I wiped the tears off of her face with my hand, much to her embarrassment. We chatted for a little bit more, mostly on subjects like the music I make and the concerts that I helped organize for the school. Soon enough, Kaori returned to her own cabin.

I let out a deep sigh as I felt Rin's hands on my shoulders.

"What do I do now?" I asked the purple-haired kunoichi. "Things got so much more complicated."

"Well," Rin began, I could practically see the smile on her face even though she was behind me. "You make sure you don't go breaking the girl's heart."

That one sentence was enough to make my brain experience the blue screen of death.

"Oh my, I think I broke him," she said as I stared into nothingness, still trying to comprehend what she had said.

* * *

The next morning we were taken straight to the Orcus Dungeon.

Honestly, I expected something a bit more gloomy, not something out of Danmachi.

The entrance to the dungeon looked like the entrance to a museum, hell, it even had a reception desk for it. The person there was checking people's Status Plates before they entered the dungeon.

"Good morning, Nagumo-kun!" I heard Kaori cheerfully great me.

I turned to her and smiled. "Good morning to you too, Shirasaki-san. Come on, we should go, Meld-san is probably waiting for us."

Suddenly I started looking around the area, I felt as if someone was watching me with malicious intent. I narrowed my eyes as I followed Kaori into the dungeon.

Our dungeon crawling went as I expected it to.

Everything on the early floors was so weak that the even when Kouki slightly touched them with his sword, it killed them. We went further and further into the dungeon and nothing was able to really give us a challenge. My contributions to the party boiled down to using Bardic Inspiration in support of the others' powers and recovery where it was needed most. Meld gave me an approving look for using my abilities like that.

Though Rin was a bit distracting, especially since we were all given battle gear based on our classes before we got to the dungeon.

Rin was wearing a tight sleeveless shirt that hugged her chest like a second skin, the shirt exposed her stomach that also connects to a mask that covers her nose and mouth. Around her neck is a red triangular shaped scarf with white triangle markings and dots. She was also wearing baggy red pants with knee-length black high-top sandals, with a gray tattered cloth wrapped around her waist. Her weapons of choice were a pair of foldable fuuma shurikens, but that also begged the question of why a medieval fantasy setting had highly conspicuous ninja gear!

Not only did she look _exactly_ like her Senran Kagura counterpart, she was also really, _really_ hot. As I said, it was distracting. Her video game counterpart had nothing on the real deal.

As we went further in we changed shifts on who was in the front lines, swapping out people every floor or so. Meld scolded Kouki for doing some pretty stupid things without thinking, like using his OP sword beam that came close to causing a cave in.

Right now we were drinking mana potions to restore our...well mana. Stuff tasted like Sunny D, I'm calling it an Estus Flask now. PRAISE THE SUN!

I saw Kaori smile a wave at me.

I gave her a teasing smirk. "I know we promised to protect each other yesterday, but with you being so close to me all the time, don't you think people will start thinking things?"

Much to my delight, Kaori's face turned red as a tomato, she stuttered uncontrollably as she tried to find any response she could.

Once again I felt someone watching me with malicious intent.

"Why do I get the feeling something bad is going to happen," I said under my breath. "Murphy, I swear, if you answer that..."

"What's that crystal?" I heard Kaori ask.

I turned to see what she was looking at.

"It ain't a Pokemon Crystal, that's for sure," I answered gravely.

I felt Shizuku elbow me in the side lightly at my quip, though she was smirking at my reference. I see we've got a bit of a closet gamer here!

"Oh, that's a Grants Crystal." Meld explained. "It's a big one, rather rare."

"That's..." I pretended to stumble back. "... _what she sai-_ "

Rin's palm slammed the back of my head and I actually did fall this time. I stood up and dusted myself off, grinning.

"You know I regret nothing, right?" I said, still grinning.

Rin sighed. "At least you're honest."

Meld rolled his eyes but smiled anyway. "It doesn't have any special properties, but it shines beautifully, so it's pretty popular among nobles."

"It's lovely," Kaori said as she stared at the crystal, blushing slightly.

"In that case, I'll get it for you." I heard Hiyama say smugly.

I shook my head as he started climbing up the rocky wall. He was going to make an ass of himself and I wasn't going to feel sorry.

"Fool!" Meld shouted. "Don't act on your own!"

"Calm down, it's not even that high," Hiyama said, climbing despite the warning.

"That's not it! Get down this instant!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatevs. It's just a stone." Hiyama scoffed.

"I told you all before that this dungeon could have dangerous traps in it!" Meld reminded.

"Tch, noisy old coward," Hiyama said as he grabbed the crystal. "See, easy peasy."

I felt a sense of foreboding as the crystal sparked with black electricity.

Oh no, it is time to prepare and batten down the hatches for troubled circumstances.

Suddenly a magic circle similar to the one that summoned us to this world appeared underneath our feet.

"IT'S A TRAP!" Meld shouted at the top of his lungs. "LET GO OF THE STONE RIGHT NOW!"

In a flash of white light, we were all transported to a huge stone bridge. A black magic circle appeared in the middle of the bridge.

A large beast ripped itself out of the black circle. It towered over all of us, it was a purple, canine-esque creature with bull-like horns and a flowing mane.

Behind us, another black magic circle appeared, out of it came many skeletal warriors that wouldn't be out of place in a Dark Souls game.

"Oh fuck this!" I yelled.

* * *

"And that's what happened," I said to the person in front of me.

The person in front of me was a small girl, tiny really. She had long snow-white hair with pointed ears sticking out of her snowy locks, and pale-blue eyes. One her head were two stubby grey horns. She had moon-pale skin and wore a black and blue sundress with detached sleeves. Below her neck was tied a large, white ribbon, she wore blue leggings that stopped halfway up her thighs and wore black shoes. A thin blue tail that ended in a spade tip came from under her dress.

"So, let me get this straight." the demonic loli said in a high pitched, cutesy tone. "You're from another world, and a reincarnation after you got killed by a falling piano?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Your class was summoned to this world to help fight off the Devils and win this world's current war?"

"This is correct,"

"And just earlier, one of your classmates launched a fireball at you, which sent you down here?"

"I swear I'm going to kill that bastard if I ever get out of here alive!"

"And after you survived the fall you got both of your arms cut off by a demonic bear monster with wind claw abilities, and just before I pulled you into this seal you were about to your jugular ripped out by some electric wolf thing."

I gave a somber look at the stumps that used to be my arms.

"Eyup," I said emotionlessly.

The demonic girl gave me a slightly pitiful look. "You have the shittiest luck I have ever heard of."

I hung my head. "I know,"

The two of us weren't technically in the dungeon anymore, as I was blacking out from blood loss, my mind was taken into this realm after my blood came in contact with some ancient sigils on the ground. What we were in could only be described as a black void.

"I can save you." the demonic girl offered.

My head snapped up, and I stared at her with wide eyes.

"I can give you your arms back," she said. "I can make you strong enough to kill anything in this dungeon."

I sighed and looked down at the void in self-loathing.

"What's the point?" I asked her, she looked confused but I quickly explained myself. "You're a demon right?"

She gave me a strained smile. "I'm a goddess."

"My apologies, but you're sealed here for a reason," I said. "Now, I don't know what that reason is, but it ain't something good. Even if I do accept your offer, what guarantee do I have that you won't just screw me over in the end? What guarantee do I have that I'll even have control over these arms that you're offering me? What guarantee do I have that you won't just possess my body?"

The, I was still trying to come to terms with it, goddess, gave me a rather impressed smile.

"You're a smart boy," she said patting my cheek.

"Well, Mama raised no fool."

She snorted. "I like you,"

I raised an eyebrow. "Do you now?"

She began pacing back and forth. "Listen, I wasn't lying when I said I could save you."

"But…?"

"It's going to require a contract."

"There it is," I said disappointedly. "What are the terms?"

"You will be under my complete servitude, your body, mind, and soul will all belong to me. You will not be my slave, but my equal, we will treat each other respect," she stated. "Worry not, you won't be some mindless puppet, this contract wouldn't serve much purpose if you were just some subservient 'yes man'. In return, you will have my full power at your disposal, and I will not be able to lie to you in any way, shape or form. Lastly, you will receive a form of immortality, as long as I draw breath, you can't die."

I sighed, I was going under her complete servitude, and yet we were equals. It was the dumbest paradox I had ever heard of. Maybe it was more along the lines of that she _can_ do whatever she wants to me, but won't. She was most likely trying to gain my trust.

This was probably as good as the deal got.

"Anything else I should know?" I asked.

"The contract links our souls together, with this, the stronger you get, the stronger I get." she sighed. "You see, I'm not as powerful as I use to be. Ever since I was sealed here my power has been diminishing."

I see, so I'm here as a way of gaining power.

"One more thing." the loli goddess said. "To fully complete the contract you have to do two things, tell me your true name, and pass a little test for me."

"Test?" I asked.

"Yes, a little test. I'm a goddess after all, even if the only way I can get out of here is by making a contact with a human begin, I still have my pride, not just anyone will do."

"And what if I fail this test?"

She stopped pacing and turned to me, the girl gave me a rather malicious smile. "I'll kill you."

I sighed once more as I thought things over, honestly, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

"I'm all in," I said. "So, what's this test of yours?"

"Up-up-up," she said wagging her finger side to side. "You need to complete the first part of the contract before we move onto the test. What's your name?"

"Hajime Nagumo," I said.

The girl frowned and gave me a disappointed sigh. "No, I mean your first name, your _real_ name."

I stared at her for a few seconds. "Zachary Mohammed."

She gave me a beaming grin, at a glance, one may think of it as an innocent child-like grin. I, on the other hand, looked right at her, her grin was crooked, twisted. Who knows just how long she's been here in isolation? Goddess or not, it must have taken a toll on her mental state.

I am so regretting this decision.

"My name is Astaroth," she said.

I felt a slight burning sensation in my chest.

"Ow, what was that?" I asked.

"Oh, I just carved a sigil into your heart," Astaroth said nonchalantly.

I blinked. "What?"

"Don't worry, it just shows that you've agreed to the contract," Astaroth explained. "Now, onto the test."

She snapped her fingers, a blue and black flame bloomed into existence right next to her.

I was mesmerized by the flame, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. It seemed to radiate a calming presence, Astaroth was most likely responsible for that since any one's natural response to fire appearing out of nowhere would be to panic.

Astaroth reached into the flames and pulled out a blue acoustic guitar with archaic runes around the edges.

"Show me what you can do," she demanded.

I was silent for about a minute, glancing at the stubs that were once my arms every few seconds.

"T-That going to be a little hard since I don't have my arms anymore," I stated.

"Ah, I forgot about that, let me fix that." Astaroth snapped her fingers once again.

I raised an eyebrow as nothing happened for a few seconds.

"Is something going to happen or - CHRIST FLINGING KIDNEY STONES!" I shouted as blue and black flames engulfed my shoulders.

Almost immediately the flames condensed and took on the form of human arms. I looked at the arms in wonder, they were still made of flames but molded just like human arms.

Can I move them?

I moved both of the arms forwards, towards the guitar. I could move them alright. I grabbed the guitar with these odd arms. I could feel the sensation of the hard, smooth, wood, and strings on the fingers.

"Those are just temporary," my head snapped up to Astaroth. "It's a quick solution for your predicament as of right now. You'll get the _real_ arms after you pass my test."

I nodded in understanding.

"Well then," I strummed the guitar, I frowned, it wasn't tuned right. "Give me a second, I've got to tune this."

I was too distracted with tuning the guitar to see the wide-eyed, astounded look Astaroth gave me.

"So," I began. "Have other people taken this test. Or am I the first?"

"U-Um, no, you're not the first," I chose to ignore her stutter. "You're number one thousand and six."

I gave a low whistle. "And they all failed?"

"Yes," Astaroth answered, she seemed distracted.

"How long have you been in here?" I asked.

"About two or so thousand years," she admitted. "You're the first person I've seen in a dozen centuries."

I stopped what I was doing and looked at her with a horrified expression. That was _far_ too long for anyone to be in isolation.

"Girl, you need a hug," I stated, I spread my right arm out. "Get over here."

She looked at me blankly. "We can discuss this when you're done. Speaking of, are you done yet?"

"Give me a minute," I said as I tested out all of the strings, I nodded once satisfied with my tuning. "Let's get started."

I took a deep breath.

 **Song: When You Were Young - The Killers, acoustic cover by Christopher Reyne**

I began the instrumental intro, each time my hand came down to play a chord a blue streak of fire could be seen. I didn't pay attention to Astaroth's reaction while I played, I was just focusing on doing the best I could as it would quite literally mean life or death for me.

 _You sit there in your heartache  
Waiting on some beautiful boy to  
To save you from your old ways  
You play forgiveness  
Watch him now, here he comes_

I was starting to get into it after the first verse. The streaks of fire that were made as I moved my hand up and down the fretboard and as I played each chord were incredibly cool to me.

 _He doesn't look a thing like Jesus  
But he talks like a gentleman  
Like you imagined when you were young_

 _Can we climb this mountain? I don't know  
Higher now than ever before  
I know we can make it if we take it slow  
Let's take it easy, easy now, watch it go_

We're burnin' down the highway skyline  
On the back of a hurricane that started turning  
When you were young  
When you were young

Honestly, it had been a while since I had played this song, but it was the only one I could think to play right now, just seemed appropriate.

 _And sometimes you close your eyes  
And see the place where you used to live  
When you were young_

T _hey say the Devil's water, it ain't so sweet_  
 _You don't have to drink right now_  
 _But you can dip your feet_  
 _Every once in a little while_

 _You sit there in your heartache_  
 _Waiting on some beautiful boy to_  
 _To save you from your old ways_  
 _You play forgiveness_  
 _Watch him now, here he comes_

 _He doesn't look a thing like Jesus_  
 _But he talks like a gentleman_  
 _Like you imagined when you were young_  
 _When you were young_

 _I said he doesn't look a thing like Jesus_  
 _He doesn't look a thing like Jesus_  
 _But more than you'll ever know_

I took a deep breath as I finished. Welp, I'm either going to die or pass with flying colors. I _really_ don't want to die.

"So," I began hesitantly. "How'd I do?"

I stared at Astaroth, much to my surprise, she looked at me, eyes widened in shock and her jaw dropped to whatever the hell this void considered the ground.

I looked to the sides awkwardly after a few seconds of silence, there had been many few seconds of silence as of late, all rather awkward. This one took the cake though.

"You passed after the _first chord,_ " Astaroth stated.

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Honestly, I would have taken you after finding out you knew how to tune."

"What!?" I asked in shock.

"I'll be straight with you," she began "You're literally the only person in over _two thousand years_ that I've known that can _use_ an instrument properly. Much less know how to tune, play, or even perform simple chords, much less _sing!_ "

Wow, that is fucking pathetic. "Out of curiosity, who was the best musician you've met?"

"Well," Astaroth crossed her arms "Before that arrogant prick, Ehito, sealed me, I was working with the original leader of the Devils."

"Oh, this is going to be interesting," I said in amused participation.

"I helped him out because his ambitions seemed interesting and entertaining," Astaroth admitted before frowning. "Samael, in terms of musical talent, was fucking horrendous."

"Was he that bad?"

Astaroth took then guitar out of my hands and plucked one of the strings. The open high E string.

" _That_ was the best he could do," she stated blandly. "At the very least he could pluck the strings correctly, that was it."

I took a deep breath and exhaled. "He could only pluck one string, what a man."

"And that is why I will never make a contract with someone out of the goodness of my heart ever again."

"So, now what?" I asked.

"Well, now you'll back out of the seal with me tagging along, breaking it." she crossed her arms. "Also, that wolf _just_ got finished ripping out your jugular and is currently getting into position to teabag you."

"Ex-fucking-scuse me!?" I shouted in shock.

"You may be excused. Right after I instruct you as to what you must do next, that is," Astaroth explained. "Clench your right hand as hard as you can and swing it at the wolf, got it?"

"This is going to hurt like a bitch, isn't it?"

Astaroth gave me a wry smile. "Yeah. Well, at least I get to enjoy it."

I gulped. "Can we get this over with already?"

With a snap of her fingers, I felt excruciating pain from my neck, without hesitation I clenched my right hand and swung it at the electric wolf. I heard a slicing sound echo through the air as the wolf got bisected.

I dropped whatever was in my right hand as I couldn't stand that pain any longer. Both my hands reached up to my neck which was currently shredded like mincemeat. I twitched on the floor, desperately trying to soothe the pain, or even trying to breathe. Though try as I might, I couldn't breathe at all, which was to be expected since I didn't have a throat anymore. Tears fell from my eyes; I couldn't handle the sheer amount of agony I was experiencing.

Then the pain gradually started to fade as the cold air that I felt on the inside of my neck went away. Instead of feeling eviscerated skin and flesh, I felt my whole neck just the way it had always been. I tried breathing but ended up coughing up quite a bit of blood, then started vomiting.

I took notice that I had my arms back, they were human arms and not some mutated mess, so that was good.

I wiped the bile from my mouth.

"Let's never do that again."

" **No promises,"** Astaroth's voice echoed, it sounded slightly distorted.

"Huh?" I said dumbly as I looked around. "Astaroth, where are you?"

" **On the floor, over here."**

I turned my head to where the dead electric wolf lay, and on the floor near it was a large, unwieldy black and blue scythe.

"You're a scythe?" I asked. "That's pretty dope."

" **Um, thanks, I guess?"** she asked unsurely.

I got up from the bloodstained ground rather clumsily. I picked up the scythe and leaned on the stone wall, I put a hand to my neck.

"S-So, you're a goddess, right?" I asked, trying to take my mind off of what just happened. "What do you govern over in the world?"

" **Joy, I govern over joy,"** she answered. " **But enough small talk, sit down and relax, you've been through enough today already."**

I nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good right about now."

I sat down with my back against the wall, every so often I felt my neck just to make sure it was there. I was mentally and physically exhausted.

" **Hajime?"** I heard Astaroth ask.

"Yeah?" I noticed I was gripping the scythe in my hands in a death grip, it was my only means of defending myself, and I was paranoid as fuck right now.

" **I was wondering if I could look through your memories in order to know how the world outside has developed and to know more about yourself."**

"Sure, go for it," I answered. "Just don't go fucking with my head."

I barely reacted as a small, blue fireball coming from the scythe hit the side of my head. It didn't harm me at all, just moved my head to the right slightly. My head did feel a little funny though.

I sighed and tried to get into a more comfortable position, but the thing about caves were that rocks weren't exactly comfortable in the first place.

"How to fuck are you going to get out of this one, Hajime?" I asked myself, not really knowing to answer at all.

After a few more minutes of coming to terms with my current situation. Simply put, it sucked.

"Alright, time to rock and roll," I said to myself as I got up.

If I was going to have any chance of getting the hell out of this mess, I needed to survey the area. But this entailed possibly encountering one of this floor's monsters and getting my throat ripped out along with my arms...again. I was already regretting this.

I slowly began creeping around the dungeon, nearly every sound making me jump, but with good reason. Along the way I encounter another type of monster, it was some kind of hideous parody of a rabbit. White fur with red glowing veins across its body, mostly along its hideous legs that were far too big for its own body.

The damn thing moved way too fucking fast! Its kicks were strong enough to straight up _shatter_ stone, so you can imagine that when it hit me in my legs that not only did it hurt like a motherfucker, but my leg got amputated...all the way to the other side of the fucking cave. After my leg came my left arm.

The rabbit slowly approached my downed form with mocking eyes. It was too fast for me to hit with my scythe, so it was all too easy for it to systematically cut me apart. In a direct fight, I had no chance.

I slashed my scythe as hard and fast as I could when the rabbit got into range. Its upper half fell to the ground, profusely spilling blood everywhere.

I gave a pained smirk. Sneak attacks, a man's best friend. A few seconds later, my arm and leg regenerated. I walked over to my old leg and removed the shoe from its foot and put it on.

My little walk took me all the way to where I first woke up when I fell down here. A small river that I floated down. I took a handful of water and gulped it down greedily. My newly formed throat felt rather dry.

I looked at my reflection in the water, the crystals the littered the walls of the floor illuminating the area.

I looked as if I was a horror movie victim. I was practically covered in blood and so was my clothes. Speaking of clothes, while the rest of my class tricked out in sweet fantasy gear, I got nothing because they didn't have any armor augmented for Bards, so I was stuck with my school uniform, which now currently in tatters.

Suddenly, the scythe in my hands burst into black and blue flames.

"Shit!" I yelled in panic as I threw the weapon away from me.

" **Now, now, no need to get so jumpy, Zachary."** I heard Astaroth's voice from the flames, the flames transformed into the aforementioned loli goddess, her voice no longer distorted. "Though, your panic was rather amusing."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair as I calmed down. "Jesus, Astaroth, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

She giggled at my complaint.

"So, did you have fun looking through my memories?" I asked, my voice sharper than I intended it to be, the stress was getting to me.

"I did in fact, your world is rather fascinating, both of them," she said, but then a red hue and lecherous grin made its way onto her face. "But who would have guessed that you would have been into such deprived interest."

To which I replayed: "Don't kink-shame me!"

"I'm not, I'm kink praising."

I deadpanned. "I'm not sure if I should feel overjoyed, or sad that I'm not unique, other than that, don't praise my kinks until you go through puberty and actually get some tits."

"McScuse me, bitch?" I saw a blur of motion and in an instant, I felt something rip through my chest. Once my vision cleared, I noticed I was on the ground and her eyes were level with mine. Her hand was inside my chest cavity

"I… regret," I coughed up some blood. She smiled when she thought I was about to stop talking, but gave a shit-eating grin. "NOTHING!"

She closed her hand slowly.

I yelled accordingly, "aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MOTHERFUCKER"

"You gonna apologize?"

"We're too far into this and I'm too stoopid!...You goddamn granny loli."

She then completely closed her hand.

"Argh! Fuck!" I shouted at the pain of having my heart literally crushed. "Why do I have to be immortal again!?"

"Because neither of us likes how mortals die when they're killed. And also so that I can do this without consequences!"

My eyes widened in horror. "Interdimensional Space Christ, YOU KNOW THE MEMES!"

* * *

 **One week later.**

She finally got her filthy, jailbait hand out of my chest. And it only took _three damn days of bickering_! Surprisingly enough, Astaroth and I get along quite well. This, unfortunately, didn't do anything for my growing hunger the past week. Immortal or not, I was still human, and humans such as I am cursed to hunger...I could go for a pizza right about now.

"Zachary," I heard Astaroth's voice next to me as the two of us sat near the river as usual. "You can't keep doing this, you're going to need to go deeper into the dungeon, and you're going to have to eat _something._ "

"I can't eat anything here," I stated. "There are no plants, only rocks, that and demon meat is poisonous to humans."

"Well, what are you going to do then!?" Astaroth shouted. "You refused to go deeper into the dungeon and if you keep starving yourself you won't be able to even move your body anymore!"

I grit my teeth in anger, I couldn't find a way out or at the very least, up. All I found was a way down, deeper in this God-forsaken place. Honestly, I was just too damn scared to actually go deeper. Who knows what's on the next floor!?

But Goddammit, after a week of drinking nothing but water I'm at my wits end!

I slammed fist on the ground out of frustration. "I'm so hungry, I could eat a demon!"

"Will you?" Astaroth asked.

"Uhhhh…"

 **One agonizing fight later…**

Jesus fuck that took too long. But after many lost limbs, two, it's fucking dead! GOTCHA, BITCH!

Praise the sun that I last saw a week ago!

Laying dead before me was a white-furred bear with absurdly large claws. This was the very same bear that had cut off both of my arms when I first got to this floor.

" **Hey, nice job. You know that was actually the hardest monster on this floor,"** Astaroth said casually, she was in her scythe form.

I blinked. "...What?"

" **Yeah, it's twice as powerful as the next one down in the hierarchy."**

"Why… didn't you tell me that… before I lost my legs?"

" **Hey, not my fault it was there when you turned the corner. Once you aggro that thing, it's not leaving you alone."**

I let out a good long sigh and then started the process of digging my legs out of it. It had swallowed them. My legs had already regenerated, but with all the nasty pebbles down here the shoes were worth their weight in gold.

How I killed the damn thing wasn't all that impressive, more luck than anything. Long story short, it decided to munch on one of my amputated legs and started choking on it. It got a scythe blade through its head for its troubles.

I glared at the bear and used Astaroth to slice its neck in vengeance. What? I'm petty, that and spending a week in literal Hell will make you pretty damn spiteful. With a quick swing of the scythe, I cut off the bear's arm and began skinning it, blood covering me once again.

"Now, how the hell am I going to cook this?" I asked no one in particular.

" **I got you, fam."** Astaroth turned back into her loli form. "This fire ain't just for show."

She took the skinned arm from my hands, not at all minding the blood that got on her, in fact, I think she smiled as the blood covered her hands.

Great job, me, you sold your immortal soul to a psychopathic, demon, loli, goddess! What _wonderful_ life choices I've made this past week. The only reason I was still alive at this point was that I wanted to pimp-slap the ever-loving fuck out of Daisuke. Ohohoho, the things I am going to do to him…I'll start by making everyone turn their backs on him and shun him just by coming out of here alive, and I'll-

"Done!"

"Nani!?" I shouted as I was brought out of my monologuing.

I stared at Astaroth giving me an amused expression as she held out the skinned arm which was now a well cooked brown and smoking.

"Thank you, Astaroth," I said as I took the freshly cooked arm out of her hands.

"Your welcome, now eat, we need to move on from the floor already," she stated.

I nodded and then blew on the smoking arm. I bit a chunk out of it and then immediately spit it out.

"Ah, fucking hell," I yelled. "It tastes like it came with a side of ruble and demon's foot, disgusting!"

I cringed as the taste of the arm lingered in my mouth. I sucked it up, fuck it, beggars can't be choosers.

I ripped another chunk out of the well-cooked arm and ate it despite wanting to throw up several times. I ate a few more chunks before I finally stopped.

Wow, despite that God awful taste, that was pretty damn satisfying. I'm not hungry anymore, but I could go for some mor-

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" I crumbled to the ground in pain.

My body, everything hurts so damn much! Everything feels like its tearing apart! I can feel my skin, muscles, bones, nerves, breaking an ripping themselves apart. Oh God, make it stop! The pain, it's too intense! As my body spasmed on the ground and I screamed my head off, I could barely make out Astaroth calling out my name.

Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!

Then I knew only darkness.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but eventually, I woke up.

"Ugh," I groaned as I held my head in pain. "What four-ounce bottle of demonic wine did I drink yesterday."

"You didn't drink any wine, but at least you're not screaming anymore." I heard Astaroth say.

"Huh?" my head was in Astaroth's lap, she smiled down at me as she ran her hand through my hair. "What happened?"

"I think you might want to see for yourself," she said, I could hear the slight worry in her voice.

 **BGM: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OST - Crime and Punishment**

I sat up and noticed we were back by the river again. I walked over the river, my eyes widened as I saw my reflection in the water. My black hair had turned snow-white and my eyes had turned blood-red, red, tattoo-like veins ran across my body. My previously skinny, rather unassuming body had put on quite a bit of muscle.

I put my hand up to my face and traced one of the red veins. "W-What is this?"

I felt a hand on my back, I didn't need to look back to know it was Astaroth.

"While you were unconscious, I took a did a checkup of your body." she was silent for a few seconds. "You're no longer human anymore."

I was silent, I made no outward expression, completely emotionless.

I had lost my life once before, and now I might as well have lost it twice. I'll most likely never see either of my families ever again. My classmates betrayed me and left me for dead and the two girls that care about me no doubt think I'm dead. I sold my soul to a demonic goddess that I'm not too sure may keep her end of the bargain, my life isn't even my own to lose anymore. I've been starved for a week and been put through more pain than any man should ever have to experience.

And after everything else, I finally lose one of the only things that I can call "mine".

I lost my humanity.

 _CRACK!_

It was a sound that only I could hear, but I had a suspicion that Astaroth could hear it too.

"Ah..." I sounded as the weight of my losses crashed down onto me. "he...hehehehe...hahahaha _HAHAHAHAheheeheeehe...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_ "

I felt tears stream down my face as I laughed hysterically at it all. I couldn't tell if something in me broke or if something clicked into place, but it was just so fucking pathetic and hilarious now that I've finally realized it.

Life was the most horrible, cruel, sadistic joke, and I was the punchline.

I fell to my knees still staring at my reflection in the water as I laughed and sobbed at the same time, my tears causing ripples in the water. I just couldn't stop laughing.

After some time I just stopped and just stared at my reflection, I'm not sure how long I just stayed there, staring.

I felt Astaroth grab my hand gently, I turned to look at her. I gazed at her, my face completely emotionless and devoid of life, I didn't bother wiping away my tears. I must look like shit right now, but I just can't be bothered to care.

She looked at me with a rather somber gaze. She hugged me, I didn't expect it, but I didn't react to it either. The world was dead to me right now.

"I'm still hungry," I said, honestly, I was.

Astaroth pulled back and gave me a sad smile. "Come on, there's a lot more of the bear left."

 **BGM END**

I stared at my Status Plate with a curious gaze. "What the fresh fuck?"

Name: Hajime Nagumo

Level: 35

Age: 17 Years Old

Gender: Male

Class: Bard

Strength: 300

Vitality: 450

Resistance: 200

Agility: 250

Magic: 600

Magic Resistance: 420

Skills: Language Comprehension, Bardic Inspiration, Song of Rest, War Song Strike, Vicious Mockery, Iron Stomach, Air Claws.

"Huh?" I noticed Astaroth looking over my side. "I knew I felt you and I grow much stronger after you ate the bear, but this is ridiculous."

"Hell, I think I even gained its abilities," I added.

Gaining abilities was good I guess. If I got more, I could get out of here faster, the faster I got out, the faster I get to kill Daisuke.

"Eating demons not only gives you better stat boost and levels but gives you certain skills from the demons you've eaten." Astaroth gave me a teasing looking. "You ready to abuse this?"

I sighed and stood up, looking blankly ahead. "Oh maliciously."

Astaroth burst into black and blue flames, the flames quickly moved to my hands, forming a scythe, like usual.

Soon enough I came across one of the electric wolves. I tried using the Air Claws skill with the scythe, and I got some rather good results. The wolf was cut in half before it even got the chance to retaliate, which was good since I'd usually lose a limb before doing any substantial damage to them.

I cut off one of its legs and skinned it, Astaroth cooked it for me and I thanked her for it. Hesitantly, I took a bite out of the leg. It was just a disgusting as the bear's, but thankfully there was no agonizing pain. I felt power coursing through my body though.

I took out my Status Plate and found out that not only had my stats increased again, but I had gained a skill called Lighting Clad. The skill allowed me to produce red lighting around my body, but I couldn't shoot it like a projectile.

" **Let's try something different,"** Astaroth said as her scythe form bursts into flames and rematerialized into what appeared to be a demonic electric guitar. " **Try using Lighting Clad on me while playing."**

Nodded as I decided to play the iconic riff from Plug in Baby by Muse. The red electricity around me turned blue as it came in contact with Astaroth, and each note I played caused electricity to be produced by my body in extreme amounts. I ended by playing a loud chord. The end result was a huge ball of blue electricity being shot out of the guitar and into a wall, causing the stone in came in contact with to explode.

" **I can tell we're going to have some fun with this,"** Astaroth said, I could practically see the bloodthirsty smile on her face.

Despite everything that had happened, I found myself smiling as well, I agreed with Astaroth, this was going to be very fun.

"Into the Dungeon, featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series." I quipped as I moved on.

My next and last test subject was the rabbit demon. When I encounter one I played a simple tone instead of something too fancy so the damn thing didn't explode on impact. A much smaller ball of blue electricity flew out of the guitar at high speeds, hitting the rabbit. I looked at it blankly as it squealed in pain as it was being electrocuted to death.

Once again I cut off a leg and let Astaroth cook it. I frowned as I took a bite, same disgusting taste, but the meat was a good bit more tender.

My stats increased once more and I gained another skill, Air Walk, the skill allowed me to gain footing mid-air and use it to move faster.

"Well, that's the last type of demon here, let's move on," I said as I walked towards the exit of this floor.

" **About time,"** Astaroth whined. " **Let's get the hell out of here."**

I looked down the exit, it was a downward spiraling staircase with Astaroth in her scythe form over my shoulder. I could only see a few meters into the staircase, after that, I only saw darkness, like a void, or an abyss.

A void or abyss, huh? Is that what this place is?

"Pfft!" I found myself having a small laugh at the names.

Such overly edgy and tacky names. I like 'em!

"Astaroth, does this place have an end?" I asked the demonic goddess.

In a burst of black and blue flames she rematerialized back into her loli form, but this time I noticed that she had grown at least an inch in height. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the exit.

"No clue, inside that seal I had no awareness of the outside world, your guess is a good as mine," she admitted.

I sighed. "Fucking hell, no reason complaining about it now, we never had a choice about how we got out in the first place."

I took a deep breath and stared down the exit one more time. I bit my bottom lip as fear nearly took hold of my body as I thought about just what horrors awaited me.

I took one step and then another, each one just as mechanical as the other.

I smirked despite my lingering fear as the perfect name for this place came to me.

"Down The Rabbit Hole we go!" I exclaimed as I plunged myself further into darkness.

 **Chapter End**

 **For those dissatisfied by the song choice, I'm saving the good shit for later.**

 **Leave a review and tell me what you guys think of it!**


	2. Behold, The Loli Vampire! (Not Canon)

**Before we begin, let's answer some questions.**

 **Astaroth is an OC I made, her design is based on Lu from Elsword.**

 **No there will not be any other demons from the 72 pillars.**

 **Welp that's about it, also, fuck OG Hajime's gun fetish!**

 **Chapter Two: Behold, The Loli Vampire!**

A week, it had been a single week ever since Hajime had fallen into the dark abyss in the Orcus Dungeon.

Shizuku was on the edge of her bed watching the moon out of her window, she glanced to the side to see Kaori sleeping on the other side of the bed. Kaori couldn't sleep very well after the overwhelming defeat they suffered. Shizuku couldn't really blame her, she herself couldn't stop thinking about that moment when Hajime disappeared into the darkness.

She remembered when they returned to the kingdom, when they shared the news of Hajime's death, everyone was shocked, but they breathed a sigh of relief when it was the "useless" bard that died. She noticed that the king and Ishtar were the same too.

As long as none of the strong heroes died, then they were fine with the losses.

It was no secret how Hajime was viewed by most of his classmates, how everyone made fun of him and tried to put him down at every turn, only for him to use his sharp tongue to shut everyone up. There had been those among them that had slandered Hajime's name. It wasn't spoken in public, but it was talked about in secret in the noble society. To them, an apostle of God that was "useless" would naturally die. Now they were speaking ill of Hajime as they pleased.

Shizuku _really_ wanted to go berserk and just start killing those ignorant assholes.

Kouki with his strong sense of justice didn't even try to stand up against such mistreatment of their fallen classmate. Did he think that if he protested against the king and church that it would leave a bad impression? Shizuku didn't really know.

It was an undeniable fact of who saved them at the time. Hajime was able to keep the Behemoth at bay with a rather...unorthodox method. He verbally abused it until it started crying, then they bombarded it with fireballs. To think that Hajime died due to a stray shot from a classmate.

Hajime's death affected everyone.

Kaori kept having nightmares about what happened.

Shizuku, Kouki, and Ryuutaro were all depressed that they couldn't do anything to save him.

Meld kept blaming himself since he was responsible for their safety.

Aiko's eyes were usually puffy and red, showing that she'd been crying.

Rin had basically shut herself away, she was barely ever seen, and whenever she was, her eyes just looked empty.

Nobody had actually expected him to die. He might get banged up more than the rest due to his lack of power, but they would always come through to save him. That was what most of them thought, anyway. The fact that any of them could die was just so…jarring. It was the worst reality check imaginable.

Shizuku sighed and stared at the moon.

"I hope you're in a better place now Nagumo-kun," she prayed.

* * *

"Fuck this shitty fucking place!" I yelled as pitch black darkness surrounded me.

But this just wasn't just your everyday ordinary darkness. This was...advanced darkness. And it was my firm belief that it could go suck a dick! I couldn't see anything, it was like being enveloped by John Cena!

" **You know you have Lightning Clad, right?"** Astaroth said condescendingly.

"Oh yeah." I played a note on the guitar and a tent of lightning surrounded me, lighting up the entire room.

I was excited to finally know what where I was going but somethings are better left unknown. As the darkness retreated, it revealed a small army of monsters which consisted of large lizards climbing on the walls, giant owls, and large six-legged cats.

I stared at the spectacle before me in silence for a few seconds.

"Fuck this day…"

 **Two minutes later…**

"How did I _*HUFF*_ not trip over _*HUAAHHH HUFF*_ ANY of these!?" I said while desperately trying to stay a couple steps ahead of the writhing mass of demons behind me.

" **Well, you got me…by all accounts, it doesn't make sense…"** Astaroth replied. " **Also, is your arm turning to stone?"**

"WHAT!? WHAT THE FUCK!?" suddenly my left side felt a lot heavier and my arm came down and slapped my side, messing up my footing for a few precious seconds.

I looked down to see that surprise, surprise, my arm was stoned worse than Snoop Dogg on a Friday night.

I heard a growl to my right and spotted a pair of glowing yellow eyes. I slammed my stoned arm against whatever the hell it was causing both the thing's bones and my arm to shatter which hurt like a motherfucker.

"SON OF A BITCH!" I yelled; I guess I still had some nerves in there. It was slowly dawning on me that I would have to fight these guys eventually.

"I need scythe mode!" I exclaimed while I swung the guitar at whatever turned my arm to stone.

The guitar was engulfed in blue and black flames and turned into a scythe mid-swing, the blade sliced through the creature with ease.

I felt the scythe faze through my hand as Astaroth transformed back into her loli form.

"This is good meat! I'll grab it for later, now keep running!" she shouted.

I tried to nod while running.

The forearm was completely gone, all the was left as a stump from the bicep up. Completely stone all the way up to my shoulder. I'd have to amputate my arm in order for it to regenerate.

What fun! Note my fucking sarcasm.

"Done! It's already cooked, so eat it whenever!" I heard Astaroth say.

"Thank you?" I said unsurely as I took whatever she handed me. I still couldn't see anything here without her flames.

Turns out it was a leg, which I then proceeded to bite a chunk down as we ran. No surprise, it tasted like shit just like everything else in this damn place.

"Huh?" I sounded as I took note of my surroundings. Well, the fact that I _could_ take note of my surrounds in the first place.

"What's wrong?" Astaroth asked.

"I have night vision!" I explained. "And I can sense the demons, they're closing in. But first, I need you to amputate what's left of my former arm."

"Alright, doing it now," she said as I saw the tip of her tail slice through my left shoulder at blinding speeds

"Fucking, hell that hurt!" I shouted.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

I looked at her blankly. "Yes, I'm as safe as the child of an overprotective mother that's also abusive."

"You're not dead, right?" she asked blankly.

"I _wish_ I was."

During our banter, my arm regenerated.

I can play! I. CAN. FIGHT!

I turn to face the horde of monsters behind me and an excited grin adorns my face as I reading Lighting Clad.

"Let's get this over with," I said as I held my arm out to Astaroth.

She got the message and turned into the demonic electric guitar with a smirk.

 **Song: One Punch Man OST - BATTLE!**

I began the intro, charging up as much electricity as I could from Lighting Clad. I bobbed my head and tapped my foot as my body was completely engulfed by the blue electricity. It was about time I _really_ put these new skills to good use.

"Come and get me!" I shouted as I charged straight into the horde of demons.

Just before I came in contact with one of the demons, the stored up electricity burst out of my body in a violent explosion, killing most of them on the front line. I used Air Walk to position myself into the center of the horde and kept on shredding.

A few demons got a bit too close for comfort and I decided now was the best time to fully rip off _Devil May Cry 3._ I spun the guitar around myself, the guitar revolving around my body, striking any demons that came in contact with it while using my War Song Strike skill for extra damage. I grabbed the guitar and jumped forwards as high as I could, I kicked off the air using Air Walk causing me to spin mid-air.

As I spun mid-air I kept playing, Lightning Clad deflecting any of the sharpened feathers the large owls shot at me, and Air claws sending deadly blades of air at my foes. As I landed I prepped Air Claws. The guitar turned into a scythe and I sent a lightning imbued blade of air at the last owl demon.

Awesome! I just pulled off the Crazy Roll move from _Devil May Cry 3_!

Double awesome! I didn't have to deal with any more projectiles from the fucking owls. Goddamn, those things are annoying.

I noticed that all the lizards did was stare at me with...yellow...glowing...eyes.

Those were the motherfuckers that stoned my arm. I demand retribution! Off with your heads!

The scythe turned back into a guitar and I started playing as I ran towards the last group of demons and slid on my knees like a rockstar. I used Lightning Clad to build up as much electricity as I could and released it just as I reached the demons, I erupted into a large pillar of blue electricity, killing the last of the demons.

I stopped playing and turned to see my handiwork.

Everything was either slashed to bits, electrocuted to death, or both.

"Holy shit," I said in awe. "I did this? This is crazy!"

" **I'll say,"** Astaroth said from within the guitar. " **This is fucking insane! If you can combine skills like these to make yourself this deadly, I'm excited to see what you could come up with when you get even** _ **more**_ _**skills!**_ "

"More skills, huh?" A twisted grin made its way onto my face as I thought of the perfect use for them. "All the better to kill Hiyama with."

* * *

"Let's see," I said while sitting down, my back against a wall as I looked at my Status Plate.

I sighed in disappointment.

"Didn't get any good skills?" Astaroth asked.

"No, I got some good skills. Night Vision, Petrification Resistance and Presence Awareness." I explained as I handed her my Status Plate.

Astaroth tilted her head in confusion. "These are all pretty good, not to mention your stats jumped up again."

"True, the skills are good," I acknowledged. "But even after eating all of these demons, the only skills I got were from the lizards. This is some bullshit!"

I felt Astaroth pat my head. "There, there, Zachary. I'm sure you'll have better luck next floor."

I deadpanned at her. "Don't fucking patronize me."

 **Next Floor**

"The fuck is this shit!?" I yelled as I trudged through some kind of tar-like substance.

The whole floor was like some kind of swamp, but with tar instead of water. Either way, it was fucking disgusting, it was getting in my shoes!

" **Zachary, whatever you do,** _ **don't**_ **use Lighting Clad here!"** Astaroth exclaimed while in scythe form, I was holding her scythe form over my shoulder.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Why?"

" **This stuff is called Flame Ore, and it's** _ **really**_ **flammable,"** Astaroth explained. " **Let's put it this way, if you were to ignite this tar then it would be the stuff of Michael Bay's wet dreams."**

The color drained from my face and I gulped out of nervousness. "Warning acknowledged."

Great, my main way of killing things is out. Well, the scythe and Air Claws would do for now.

I narrowed my eyes ahead of me, something was moving in the tar. But for some reason Presence Awareness wasn't picking anything up, the fuck is going on.

My grip on Astaroth's Scythe tightened. Yeah, I know, it's about time I called the scythe something.

"Fucking hell!" I yelled as I dodge _something_ at the last second.

All I saw were countless rows of sharp teeth! What the fuck was that!? Presence Awareness didn't even pick it up!

I winced as pain flared across my arm, damn thing was able to get a small chunk out of me.

I turned to where the creature dived back into the tar and looked out for any movement in the stuff. This time I'll be ready.

Wait for it and...there!

 _Splash!_

I sidestepped the creature and slashed at it with Astaroth's Scythe while using the Air Claws skill. Didn't want it surviving after all.

The demon was cut cleanly in half, thank God.

I walked up to it. It looked like some kind of shark. Demon shark? Probably.

Looks like the head still alive, it flopped on the surface of the tar just like a fish out of water.

I brought my scythe down on its head, ending its life.

"Welcome to my swamp," I quipped.

"Now," I sighed as I grabbed the shark-like demon by its tailfin, the tar, and blood making it really gross and sticky. "How the fuck am I going to cook this?"

 **Fifty Floors Later**

I have no damn idea how long it's been since I got here. Hell, I think I've lost all sense of time. Days? Weeks? What does it matter? The only thing that matters is that progress is being made.

Even though much progress has been made, it is still my firm belief that this place could fuck itself a hundred times over!

Seriously, one floor I found giant poison spitting frogs. The sheer amount of pain I experienced from the poison was comparable to when I first ate demon meat. Then there was a demon moth that looked like Mothra from the Godzilla movies, and that one had paralyzing scales. And to top it all off, the whole floor was covered in a thin poisonous fog.

I sighed as I walked through this floor, I haven't even encountered a single demon yet! It's just like one big hallway the stretches on forever!

"What's wrong, Zachary?" Astaroth asked as we walked through the never-ending hallway.

"Nothing, just remembering all the crap floors we had to go through," I said.

I noticed that she grew a few more inches, looks like the contract is workings wonders. The stronger I get, the stronger she gets.

"Ah, you mean like that forest floor with all of the giant centipedes?" Astaroth asked.

I stopped as the color drained from my face.

Fuck that floor, fuck it _hard!_

I got ripped in half by those fucking centipedes. I had to fight those things while my bottom half regenerated, not to mention that the damn things were able to split themselves apart to fight as a group. Thank god for my AOE electric guitar skills! As painful as it was, the worst part wasn't getting cut in half, that would be being naked from the waist down while Astaroth stared at me, giggling with a blush on her face. Doesn't help that she's a fucking loli! Goddamn it, sometimes, I _want_ the FBI after me because of this girl.

Don't even get me _started_ on those fucking tree monsters, the only thing they were good for was the fruit they produced.

Speaking of fruit.

I took an apple looking fruit out of a small bag I made out of demon hide and took a bite out of it.

Damn these things are good! It's got the crispness of a damn good apple, but taste just like a watermelon. I hunted those tree monsters to extinction for these things. The best part about them? They don't spoil!

I handed one of the apple-like fruit to Astaroth and nodded.

"Yup," I said simply.

She grinned impishly as she spun the fruit on her finger. "Aw, are you still embarrassed?"

"Yes,"

"Come on, it's not like you've got anything to be shy about," Astaroth said while giggling.

"I do with when I'm traveling with a girl that looks like she's twelve!" I exclaimed irritably.

"Come on, Zachary, we've been over this! I'm a goddess, I'm thousands of years old."

"Then that means, you're a pedophile." I deadpanned.

"McScuse me, bitch?" in a blur of motion I felt something rip through my chest, I noticed I was now kneeling so that my eyes were leveled with Astaroth's.

Astaroth gave me a sickeningly sweet smile as a dark aura emitted from her.

I was not impressed.

"Are we really doing this...again?" I asked as some blood escaped my mouth.

"Would you care to repeat that?" she asked threateningly.

Now you may be wondering why I am not in agonizing pain after having this loli find her way to my heart...literally? And to that, I ask: Have you not _seen_ that shit I've been through!?

I deadpanned at her. "Sure...you pedophile."

With a quick motion, she ripped out my heart then crushed it before my eyes.

I coughed up some blood at the sudden removal of my internal organ.

Also, SHOT THROUGH THE HEART!

"D-Did you just Rising Revengeance my ass!?" I shouted, half in pain, half in outrage.

Astaroth narrowed her eyes, some of the blood from my crushed heart splattered onto her face.

"S ranked on Revengeance difficulty, bitch," Astaroth said coldly.

"Fuck you!" I yelled.

"OH, SO _NOW_ YOU WANT TO FUCK ME!" she yelled.

We then spent the next three days bickering like an old married couple.

* * *

It's been days, fucking days!

Does this hallway even have an end!?

Hell, we even ran out of fruit. Dammit, I knew I should have brought one of those tree monsters with me, I would have had an endless supply of fruit!

FRUIT FOR THE FRUIT GODS!

"Welp, this fuckin' stupid," I complained while Astaroth in her scythe form laid across my shoulder. Her feet started to get sore.

I took out my Status Plate and looked at my stats and skills.

Name: Hajime Nagumo

Level: 72

Age: 17 Years Old

Gender: Male

Class: Bard

Strength: 760

Vitality: 1490

Resistance: 890

Agility: 1120

Magic: 1700

Magic Resistance: 1070

Skills: Language Comprehension, Phantasmal Symphony [+Bardic Inspiration], Song of Rest, War Song Strike, Vicious Mockery, Iron Stomach, Air Claws, Magic Manipulation, Lighting Clad, Divine Step [+Aerodynamic] [+Flicker] [+Grand Legs], Night Vision, Distant Sight, Presence Awareness, Magic Perception, Hide Presence, Poison Resistance, Paralysis Resistance, Petrification Resistance.

Yeah, this world has no clue what game balance is, and I intend to abuse the living hell out of it!

So, turns out that some skills and evolve or even straight up change into completely different skills depending on how much you use them. The only skills I had that could evolve were Bardic Inspiration, which evolved into Phantasmal Symphony, and Air Walk, which evolved into Divine Step.

Both skills had what I would call sub-skills that allow me to do what it previous skill did, and or grant me more skills related to that ability.

Divine Step worked just like Air Walk but came with Aerodynamic, which let me move at my own will midair. Flicker, it was basically the flash step move from every Shōnen battle anime in existence, and Grand Legs lets me kick things really, _really_ hard.

Phantasmal Symphony was a complete mystery to me because I haven't tried it out yet. I still had Bardic Inspiration which has never failed me before, but I had absolutely no clue what Phantasmal Symphony did.

" **Zachary, in front of you!"** Astaroth shouted.

"Huh?" I stopped and looked in front of me.

Just a few meters ahead of me was a gigantic stone door with two equally gigantic humanoid statues on each side.

"The fuck is this?" I asked no one in particular.

The moment I place my hand on the stone door I felt vibrations, which then grew to the point of feeling like an earthquake. It was the stone statues, they were moving.

 **BGM: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure OST - Awaken**

In a burst of movement, the stone covering these creatures broke off in a rather showy fashion.

As the smoke cleared it was revealed that the two creatures appeared to be giant, muscular cyclopes.

Their first act? To start posing like they members of the Joestar family.

"Astaroth, what am I looking at here?" I asked in complete bewilderment.

" **I have no fucking clue,"** she told me as I stared at the two cyclopes.

After a few more seconds of staring at the...spectacle before me, the two cyclopes finally looked like they were ready to fight.

Unfortunately for them…

 **BGM END (Record Scratch)**

 _Shink!_

Astaroth's Scythe was now embedded into one of the cyclops's eyes.

I believe in preemptive strikes!

" **Ahhh….Ahhhh!...AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"** the cyclops started screaming and flailing in pain in a rather comical fashion.

I smiled, seeing my enemies in agonizing pain before me always fills my heart with joy.

...Wow, I'm kind of fucked up.

After satisfying my inner sadist I used a combination of Flicker and Divine Step to appear faster than either cyclops could react in front of Astaroth's Scythe. I grabbed a hold of the weapon tightly and swung it horizontally with great force. The cyclops the weapon was embedded in had the top half of its head cleanly cut off.

I landed on the ground gracefully as blood dripped from the scythe and the cyclops's corpse hit the group.

The other Cyclops looked at me fearfully as a bead of sweat traveled down the side of its head.

"Yeah," I confirmed what I knew it was thinking, I grinned sadistically. "You're pretty fucked."

 **One brutal killing later**

Alright, let's see what's behind door number one!

With a single hand, I opened the large, stone door. I took a peek at what was inside, I couldn't see anything, it was pitch black in there.

"Night Vision," I said, activating the skill.

I took a few steps inside and looked around. The room looked like the place my class and I was summoned. Weird.

My vision was drawn to the large, black, cube in the middle of the room. More specifically, something protruding from the cube.

"Is..." my eyes widened as I heard an unmistakably horse, but feminine voice. "Someone...there?"

I was a girl with a child-like figure, seriously, the girl looked like she was twelve or thirteen. She had blond hair and red eyes, her skin looked like porcelain, not to mention that she was waist deep in a fucking rock along with her hands...That and she was completely naked.

Welp, this situation is completely NOPE!

"Is...anybody there?" the girl asked again.

There's someone else down here!? In this hell hole!? How!? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!

"Please...I..." the girl spoke.

There is no fucking way I'm falling for this, it's _got_ to be a trap.

"Sorry," I said finally. "Room service is not available at this moment, please try again later."

"Wha…? Wait!" the girl yelled as loud as she could, it was kind of hard to tell since it sounded like she hadn't had anything to drink in _years_. "Please...Let me out of here..."

"No can do," I said as I began closing the door. Fuck it, I'll _dig_ my way to the next floor.

"W-Why?...I will do anything...please..." she said in a quivering voice.

I could see her desperately struggle against confines of the cube. Most others would pity the sight. I felt nothing.

"You see," I decided she at least deserved an explanation. "I call this place The Rabbit Hole, it's a bit of a metaphor for entering the unknown. Basically what I'm getting at here is, why the fuck would I unseal someone who has been sealed her for a reason, and do so without anything in return. For all I know this is all one big trap. Well, sucks to be you because I ain't falling for that old trick."

"But..."

"I know you said you'd do anything." I cut her off. "But look at yourself, what _can_ you do in that condition? If anything, you'd slow us down."

"Us?..."

Astaroth turned back into her humanoid form in a burst of blue flames. Her expression was neutral as the girl stared at her with shocked eyes.

"Hello, vampire," Astaroth said as she crossed her arms.

Seems she was just a cautious as I was with this girl. Wait, a minute! Vampire? If she sparkles I'll kill her on principle!

"Vampire, eh? I read that they went extinct a few hundred years ago." I put my two cents in.

"Well, it was nice meeting you and all, but once again, no way in hell am I believing anyone who got their self-locked up in this fucking place," I explained.

Turned to Astaroth who just smile sweetly at me.

I gave her an empty grin. "That goes double for you."

She grinned her eyes glowing blue slightly. "And why's that? Was it the five other times I ripped your heart out when the author skipped the last fifty floors?"

"Fourth wall, you will not be missed." I sighed. "No, you claim to be a goddess when you look like you came out of Moe Hell. With our souls connected you get stronger as I get stronger. Contract or not, you still pull the strings in our little relationship. Hell, I have no reason to believe that you can't go against the contract. So, tell me, what stopping you from killing my ass once you regain your former power?"

A small amount of blue flames danced across her skin as her grin grew wider.

I grinned in a twisted fashion as red lightning ran across my skin.

"Pfft!" the two of us started laughing as we stopped our little display of power.

"Welp," I turned back to the vampire. "it's been fun, but I got shit to do. Tell you what, the day my character arc goes down the shitter and I become a gullible bumble fuck and start being best friends with someone who tried to kill me three minutes ago Naruto style, I'll make sure to send your undead, jailbait ass a friend request."

The vampire tilted her head in complete confusion. "I...what?"

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get out of here so that I can take a cold four, hour-long shower. Maybe watch some Highschool DxD." I began closing the door.

"No!" the vampire cried out. "You're wrong, I'm not trying to trick you...I..."

There was once a time when I would never have ignored the cries of a helpless girl. That time had passed however because I had been through literal hell and had become a cynical, sarcastic, asshole.

The door was just about to close when she said something that stopped me in my tracks.

"I was betrayed..."

...Fuck.

* * *

 **Vampire girl POV**

The vampire was desperate at this point, she didn't know how many years had passed, but the only person that might have any chance of freeing her was about to slip through her fingers.

Had she not been through enough already? The slumped her head. Tears she didn't know she had were about to spill from her eyes.

"I was betrayed..." she admitted.

The footsteps stopped. She looked up and saw the boy's fists clenched.

"Goddammit, Naruto," he muttered and gave a long sigh.

He turned around and started walking towards her.

"I was betrayed too," she heard the boy say. "Bastard shot a fireball at me and sent me falling to my presumed death down here."

She heard his footsteps getting closer, but she still couldn't see him.

"I lost both my arms and sold my very soul to get them back, now I can't even die on my own terms anymore."

She heard the footsteps stop, he was only a couple feet away from her, but no matter how close someone got, she would never be able to see them in this darkness. She heard two things slam themselves near the sides of her head.

"Hell, I even lost my own humanity to get this far," suddenly, red lightning arced across his skin illuminating her body for the first time in hundreds of years. "I don't even know what I am anymore. Now my only reason to continue living is the kill the man who made my life hell."

The vampire could find get a good look at the boy at long last.

He was tall, had long, snow-white, hair with what seemed like it had been licked up by a cow and the right side of his head. His eyes were a cold, piercing, red that seemed as if they were devoid of any life. Red tattoo looking veins ran across his body and he wore what seemed to be a strange school uniform.

"So tell me," he said, looking directly into her eyes with scrutiny. "What's _your_ story?"

She was stunned, she couldn't believe he came back for her. Hope filled her heat as she stared into his red eyes. It was finally here, a second chance. What should she tell him? How could she convince the two? A million thoughts raced through her mind. She couldn't rely on her abilities, she needed to convince them.

"Are you going to answer me, or not?" he asked irritably. "I can just leave right now if you want."

So, just the _truth_ , huh?

"Vampire...special...atavistic power...regeneration..."

Tears that were threatening to spill finally broke through. Some of her tears found her ways into her mouth giving her dry throat some much-needed relief, but barely more than a drop in a wide desert.

The boy raised an eyebrow. "You got sealed because you could regenerate?"

"Couldn't...be...killed...silver...even de-*cough* decapitation...worked hard...so hard...war...fought...until...peace...retainers said...unneeded." She stopped, the memories were overwhelming her, but she needed to continue. She needed to tell her story, even if it was in chunks and pieces.

"Uncle on throne...didn't care...but strength still...useful...expedition...dungeon...couldn't be killed...others died...led here...then sealed...uncle...laughing."

Silence permeated the room, she was done. Sure there was more to the story, but no more words were spoken. The boy stared at her, her red eyes expelling tears as the memories replayed over and over again in her head.

"You mentioned a throne, you royalty or something?" the boy asked.

She nodded.

"You said you couldn't be killed..."

"Regeneration...automatic...immediately...even silver...even if head...cut off."

"So, why are you sealed here?"

"...More...magic...used instantly...direct manipulation...no formation...no circle...needed."

The boy stared at her, his mouth slightly agape. Oh no! Did she say something wrong?

"...help...me..."

Their eyes were locked for a few more seconds, until…

"Astaroth, how do we break this seal?"

The vampire's eyes widened in shock and absolute joy.

The girl, Astaroth, turned to the boy with a serious expression. "You sure about this? I can sense her power, it eclipses our own as of now. If we free her and she's hostile, we're screwed."

"Honestly, I'm not too sure, but I'm feeling extra retarded today, so let's free her anyway." the boy admitted comically.

The girl sighed. "Fine, the seal itself is child's play, almost as if a complete amateur made it, but in my current state, it's going to take a while and I'll need your help."

Astaroth shot a blue bullet of fire at the cube the vampire girl was stuck in. In a matter of seconds, the entirety of the cube was covered in cracks the leaked blue flames.

The vampire girl saw the boy nod in understanding. "What do you need me to do?"

Astaroth smiled all too sweetly. "Pick a song, and play with fire."

"Yes, ma'am," the boy said playfully.

Wait, song? Play with fire? What in the world is going on here?

The boy turned to face her. "Let's get one thing straight here, I don't trust you at all, but I'm willing to give you a chance. You only get one shot at this. Please, don't fuck this up for yourself."

The vampire nodded.

"Good," he walked a few meters back and put his arm out towards Astaroth. "Let's do this."

The vampire's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she witnessed Astaroth be consumed by black and blue flames and transform into what looked like a guitar.

Oh, various gods! He's a Bard!? If she could, the vampire girl would have facepalmed, hard. Her experience with Bards were rather negative, not that any of them were bad people per say, but more along the line of every time the played or starting singing she could swear that her ears were bleeding.

If this was truly her only get out of the seal, then she'd bear with it.

"Alright, let's give Phantasmal Symphony a shot," he said.

Suddenly, four humanoid specters made of black and blue fire appeared, all with strange instruments. It seemed like the boy was just as surprised as her.

"Well shit," the boy said simply. "Talk about getting the band back together."

Well, her ears may bleed, but at least she'd be getting out of this seal at long last.

 **Song: Shepherd of Fire by Avenged Sevenfold**

Then the first few notes of the song played and she was already blown away. The _first few notes_ were _leagues_ above any kind of music she's ever heard. The specters with instruments were also playing with him.

 _Let's take a moment and break the ice_

 _So my intentions are known_

 _See I have pity in watching you suffer_

 _I know the feeling of being damned alone_

 _I've got a storybook of my own_

The vampire had her jaw dropped, she had never heard music of this caliber. To her, it was awe inspiring. Hell, she found herself bobbing her head to the song.

 _Don't you see I am your pride,_

 _Agent of wealth,_

 _Bearer of needs? (And you know it's right)_

 _I am your war_

 _Arming the strong_

 _Aiding the weak_

 _Know me by name_

 _Shepherd of fire_

 _Well I can promise you paradise_

 _No need to serve on your knees_

 _And when you're lost in the darkest of hours_

 _Take a moment and tell me who you see_

 _Won't tell you who not to be_

The vampire noticed that the cracks on the cub were getting bigger, the more the boy played, the more flames seeped out of them.

 _Now you know I am your pride,_

 _Agent of wealth,_

 _Bearer of needs. (And you know it's right)_

 _I am your war_

 _Arming the strong_

 _Aiding the weak_

 _Know me by name_

 _Shepherd of fire_

 _Disciple of the cross and champion in suffering_

 _Immerse yourself into the kingdom of redemption_

 _Harden your mind through the chains of the divine_

 _Make way for the shepherd of fire_

The cube had practically turned into a large, blue, inferno at this point, but the vampire felt no pain from the heat.

 _Through the ages of time_

 _I've been known for my hate_

 _But I'm a dealer of simple choices_

 _For me it's never too late_

 _I am your pride,_

 _Agent of wealth,_

 _Bearer of needs. (And you know it's right)_

 _I am your war_

 _Arming the strong_

 _Aiding the weak_

 _I am your wrath._

 _I am your guilt._

 _I am your lust. (And you know it's right)_

 _I am your law._

 _I am your star._

 _I am your trust._

 _Know me by name_

 _Shepherd of fire_

The song had ended and the flames stopped. The cube she was sealed in started to crumble. Little by little, she was being released from her shackles. Soon, more and more parts of her got free, and more and more snow white skin was revealed. Her swelling chest came bare, barely covered underneath her long strands of hair. Then her abdomen, showing little signs of emaciation. Her hips followed new; slightly wide for someone of her apparent age. Her shapely thighs, finally, her small feet were freed last.

* * *

 **My POV**

I quickly walked up to the crumbling cube and made sure to catch her before she fell on the ground. Ah, Christ. She really was naked under that damn cube.

Her, myself, and Astaroth all sat on the ground as I took off my school blazer.

I was interrupted as I felt a small hand on my chest. I looked down to see the girl stare up at me, her red eyes quivering as her tears flowed a new.

"Th...thank you..." she shakily reached her arms around me and began crying into my chest. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

I sighed quietly hugged her back. Hopefully, this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.

"What's your name?" I heard her ask.

"Ah, you can call me Hajime Nagumo or Zachary Mohammed, pick one and stick with it please," I answered.

She looked up at me and gave me a small smile. "I like the name, Zachary."

I sighed, fucking hell, I'm never moving past my old name, am I? Well, I did give her the choice after all.

"Very well, and you are?" I asked.

"I...don't have one," she admitted. "...Name, grant me,"

"What? Did you forget your name or something?"

"No...that's not it...I don't want my old name...the name Zachary grants me will be good enough."

I stared at her for a few seconds. "Huh? Well, I'm not the best at coming up with names, but I'll give it a shot."

Blue flames still lingered on the remains of the cube, the way the light shined off of her hair gave me an idea.

"How about 'Yue'?" I asked.

"Yue?...Yue...Yue..."

I nodded. "Yeah. It means 'the moon' where I come from. Because your golden hair shines like the moon. How about that? If you don't like it, I'll think of another one."

"I like it. I'm Yue from now on, thank you," she said giving me a warm smile.

"For the love of ME!" we turned to see Astaroth with an annoyed expression on her face. "What am I, chopped liver? Also, I don't remember ordering my smooth talk with extra cheese, Zachary. Step up your game, mister. This isn't a damn visual novel!"

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, get over here already."

Astaroth walked over and wrapped her arms tightly around my right arm. She and Yue glared at each other as I just watched.

Great, I have two super powerful lolis fighting over me.

FBI, take me away, I know my rights.

I sighed and took off my school blazer with my left hand. It was a little cut up and covered in blood, but it'll do for now.

"Yue, put this on, can't have you walking around everywhere butt naked, can we?" I said while handing her the blazer.

Yue's face lit up like a Christmas tree as she put on the blazer.

"Zachary, pervert," she said looking off to the side, still blushing.

I deadpanned at her. "Yes, Yue, me wanting you to _actually_ put some clothes on _totally_ makes me a pervert. Such _sound_ logic."

I felt Astaroth pat my arm. "That's enough sarcasm, buddy."

 _Crash!_

"The fuck!?" I yelled.

Before any of us could react a large stone spike impaled both Yue and I like a kabob. I turned around to see a large demonic scorpion, the ground morphed into a trail of spikes leading up to us.

"Yue," I coughed up some blood. "Did you know about the giant scorpion that apparently watches too much Fullmetal Alchemist?"

"Sorry..." she coughed up some blood, the spike pierced her chest just like me. "It's been so long...forgot it was there."

I sighed as blood dripped from my mouth. "Yue, this is the start of a very frustrating relationship."

 **Chapter End**

 **Hope you guys like this chapter!**

 **As I hope some of you have guessed, I'm going to make some changes to Yue's personality compared to her canon counterpart. Seriously, Yue in canon has the emotional variety of a brick!**

 **Also, I'm not having Yue stay a loli, by the time the group gets out of the Rabbit Hole, Astaroth and Yue will look like fully grown adults...HOT fully grown adults.**


	3. No Rest for The Wicked (Not Canon)

**Alright, so, I found something in the Arifureta series that REALLY pissed me off. Turns out, here are some spoilers for ya'll reading the web novel, Yue's uncle trapped her in the Abyss to SAVE her from the main antagonist, Ehito. This bullshit, asspull, very much unnecessary, excuse for a plot twist was fucking dumb. Not to mention that this shit was revealed at the END of the story when it was pretty much cemented as fact that Yue's Uncle was a fucking scumbag.**

 **Dammit, Ryo Shirakome, you gave Yue a perfectly good backstory, then you ruin it with this shit! Let us hate a character you** _ **made**_ **for us to hate!**

 **Alright, now that I'm done being more triggered than a hardcore Type-Moon fan reading anything by Gabriel's Blessing and Third Fang, let's get on with the shit you've been waiting over a month for!**

 **Also, I've tweaked the lore quite a bit, especially with the Vampires and Devils. That and two more chapters before we leave the shit whole I call The Rabbit Hole of Madness.**

One more thing, I swear, big shout out to Magus of Dream, the only other person on this site that has an **Arifureta fanfiction, his chapters inspired some scenes in this chapter and the Omake at the end. Hope you like the chapter my dude!**

 **Chapter Three: No Rest for The Wicked**

 **Yue POV**

"Fucking Christ, this thing just won't die!" her savior, Zachary, complained as he grabbed her and dodged out of the way of some large needles. "We've been at this shit for an hour! It's like trying to fight Yiazmat from Final Fantasy!"

" **I saw what that is in your memories,"** a voice from his scythe said. " **It's fucking cancer!"**

Yue stared at his blood covered form in awe. Other than his songs, this man didn't things such as use magic circles or incantation for spells. Hell, it seemed like he only sung the lyrics of his songs out of habit, or more likely, preference.

The man who had freed her from her dark, lonely hell, Zachary, was able to directly control magic, just like her.

The similarities didn't stop there! To utter shock, being ripped in half, having various organs destroyed, or being _decapitated_ didn't so much as make him flinch. He just kept regenerating, just like her!

Something in her stirred. Admiration? Wonder? She didn't really know. However, her interest in the young 'music man' grew.

Her mind took her back to when she ruled the kingdom of the vampires, hundreds of years ago. All her time and efforts were for her kingdom, and with her hard work, her kingdom flourished. She remembered what her master who was also her friends and confidante told her. She needed a partner in the future, a king to rule her kingdom with. However, she wouldn't randomly choose a partner. No, no, no, her partner, her _king_ , should be- No! _Had_ to be just as special as her.

She didn't know just how long she had been sealed here for. Maybe a few hundred years, maybe over a thousand. To her, none of it mattered anymore, because she finally found some who met her criteria to a _T._

 _Shink!_

"OH GOD, MY FUCKING EYES!" Zachary shouted in horrible pain as stone needles pierced his eyes.

Yue, winced, perhaps she should give him a hand.

"OH GOD, NOW I KNOW HOW CLAPTRAP FELT...FUCK YOU, GOD!" he shouted as he ripped the needles out...along with his eyeballs.

Yue didn't know what this 'Claptrap' was, but the very name made it feel like her brain cells were committing suicide.

Just like all of his injuries, his eyes regenerated quickly.

The scythe in his hands hummed as wind surrounded it. With a great slash, a powerful blade of wind was sent rocketing towards the demonic scorpion, creating a trench in the ground as it traveled. The demon took the wind blade head on and only received a small scratch as it impacted on its hard shell.

Zachary left her side and rushed the demon as his arms were consumed with red electricity. Yue thought he was going to attack it with the scythe again, but to her surprise, he _punched_ it, and it the very much audible cracking of his bones, and the creator that formed beneath him were anything to go by, he hit the demon with everything he physically had.

Cracks formed on the demon's shell from where his fist impacted it.

Yue's eyes widened slightly. That was the first time the did any noticeable damage. Perhaps their persistence was finally paying off.

The scorpion screamed in pain and rage as it smacked him away with bone crushing force into a wall, debris covering the hole made from the impact. The scythe in his hand was sent flying through the air and stabbed itself into the ground near Yue.

The weapon Zachary wielded combusted into blue and black flames and the girl that seemed to be his companion walked out of the odd inferno and scowled at the scorpion.

"Arrogant creature," she said as she threw two fireballs above the demon.

The fireballs split apart creating a ring around the demon, the ring of fire erupted into a pillar of merciless flames that consumed to scorpion demon.

A trail of stone spikes quickly formed, heading towards the odd looking girl. She frowned and waved her hand, the trail of spikes were consumed by blue flames and turned into molten rock before they could reach her.

With an explosion of red lighting, Zachary leaped out of the hole in the wall and charged the scorpion with reckless abandon. The demon slammed it's pincers on the ground causing a mass of spikes to erupted, impaling him in a way that almost looked like crucifixion.

Roaring with rage, he snapped the spikes he was impaled with and somehow kicked off thin air itself and punched the demon in one of its many eyes, his arm sunk to the elbow in its head.

The demon's stinger impaled Zachary and flung him towards herself and the odd girl.

They moved out of the way as he bounced off the ground and slid painfully on the ground with a trail of blood.

"...Ow."

"Zachary," Yue called getting his attention.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked, his voice muffled from being face down in the ground.

"Why don't you run?" she knew he could have just left her there and escape himself.

Zachary pushed himself off the ground and pushed his shoulder back, causing a gut-wrenching crack. Must have been dislocated.

"Why don't I run?" he repeated, walking towards them. "What stupid question."

She was rather confused at the response she got, was it that ridiculous of a question to ask?

"You want to know why I won't run away?" Zachary asked her.

Yes, she believed she already asked that.

"It's because as much as this place was taken from me, it will _never_ take who I am!" he boldly stated.

Yue blinked. That was not what she was expecting to be his answer.

"You think I'm going to abandon you just because this thing is pissing me off worse than any cheap fighting game final boss I've ever encounter?" he asked, Yue had no clue what a 'fighting game' was. "I have principles dammit!" he cracked his neck and knuckles. "I'm out for fucking vengeance and if this world wants to throw all it can to prevent me from getting my due, then as for as I'm concerned," he raised his head and stared at the ceiling. "Fuck! You! Screw the dumb god that summoned me! Screw my fucking classmates!"

At that moment the scorpion shot a laser from its stringer through Zachary's chest.

Zachary looked at the demon with a venomous gaze. "And screw this fucker who doesn't know the laws of equivalent exchange!"

Before he could go on another suicidal charge, Yue grabbed his arm.

His red eyes looked down at her curiously. "What is it?"

"I..." here goes nothing. "Need you to trust me."

"Okay," was his short and immediate reply.

Wait what?

"Wait what?" she said out loud, repeating her thoughts.

"Yue, if have _any_ way to beat this thing, fucking _do it!_ " he exclaimed. "It's been a fucking hour and we've barely made any progress."

"FUCKING DIE ALREADY!" the girl with horns shouted as she pelted the demon with fire.

The vampire sighed and wrapped her arms around him, she put her hand on the side of his neck and brought herself closer.

"Bad touch, bad touch!" he exclaimed, she hoped it was only in a joking manner.

Bringing her head to the side of his neck, she sunk her fangs into him, drinking his blood. She moaned in bliss as his blood entered her mouth. Yue didn't know if it was because she hadn't had any blood in centuries, or if it was something exclusive to him, but his blood tasted _glorious_!

"Yue," Zachary said in an unamused tone. "I'm glad you're having your fill in who knows how long, but now is _not_ the time for a stiff drink!"

* * *

 **My POV**

Great job Zachary, you just let a vampire drink your blood in the middle of the most frustrating fight you've ever been in.

Pro Plays!

The worst part is that she won't stop moaning!

FBI, why have you forsaken me!? Oh wait, I'm in another world...FUCK YOU, GOD!

Finally, after what seemed like forever. Yue raised her head from my neck and looked me right in the eyes. Her face was flushed as she licked the small trail of blood the escape through the side of her mouth.

She smiled. "...Thanks for the meal."

Now, most people would think the vampire looked rather seductive for her apparent age.

 _RAVIOLI RAVIOLI, DON'T LEWD THE VAMPIRE LOLI! WRYYYYYYYYYY!_

I was not most people.

In the middle of my existential crisis, I noticed Yue stand up, the presence surrounding her was more fitting of her royal status. Some way, somehow, not a speck of the girl's previous emaciation could be felt, her skin recovered its tone and shine, almost like white porcelain. Her hair looked far more healthy than it was beforehand.

A gentle breeze, then a stronger wind, I looked at Yue in awe, it seemed like it was originating from her. My Magic Perception skill was going crazy due to the amount of magical energy she was producing, it was fucking insane! The strong winds blew away dust and chunks of rock alike, no even pieces of the scorpion's shell were spared from her winds.

With the torn up blazer billowing, her body began to rise, just a few centimeters above the floor. She gracefully raised her right arm beneath the blazer, her palm facing towards the demon which I have come to truly _hate_. The temperature in the room began to rise rapidly.

The scorpion froze as if shocked in fear by the _sheer_ power radiating off of Yue. I couldn't blame it, I'm scared shitless too!

"Your presence...vexes me." Despite the rising temperature, Yue's tone was colder than ice. "Disappear from my sight, scum. Azure Sky!"

It was a split second, but in a split second, I noticed many things.

The flaming white runs materializing around her. The seven overlapping Magic Circles spinning around her. The winds near her catching on _fire._

The only other warning I got that something happened was the thin white line of light that seemed to pierce the scorpion.

Then the damn thing fucking erupted in a pillar of white flames so bright that I shut my eyes as hard as I could on reflex and covered my face. I could hear the demon's screams of agony as the inferno raged on. I _almost_ felt sorry for it, then I remembered how much of a pain it had been for the past hour and smiled at it's suffering. Soon enough, the screams stopped.

Yue had returned to the ground gently, she did a quick pirouette before halting, stopped facing Hajime. She stumbled a little, getting dizzy from spinning too quickly. Her breathing was also faintly labored. She was obviously winded. Her face was still as expressionless as before. Except for a slight rise at the corners of her lips. That and the joyful light in her eyes, indicating that she was clearly pleased with what she had done.

It was that smile that told me everything I needed to know. I just basically opened Pandora's Box.

Oh boy, I just freed another psychopath, didn't I? She'll fit right in!

I turned to Astaroth. "Looks like she's got better _firepower_ than you!"

She glared at me with pure feminine fury. "Fuck you and fuck your puns! If I was at full power then I'd make what she did look like a damn firecracker."

The two of us kept our little back and forth going for a while as Yue just stared at us with confusion and amusement.

* * *

So, after all of the excitement, Astaroth formally introduced herself to Yue.

As they talked to each other I walked up to corpse of the scorpion.

Its shell was pitch black, burned from the inside out.

Hmm, looks salvageable. I jumped onto the back of the demon and plunged my arm deep into its flesh, grabbing as much of its innards as I could. I ripped my arm out with a large chunk of cooked flesh in my hands, the meat was still blisteringly hot, but the pain didn't bother me much. I sat on the top of the scorpion's head as I started eating, the meat wasn't too bad.

I took out my Status Plate as I noticed Yue and Astaroth walking towards me.

"Zachary," Astaroth called out. "Did you get anything new from the damn bug?"

"Let me check." I gave a low whistle as I looked it over. "Fucking hell, I thought I broke the game balance already, but this is fucking ridiculous!"

"What happened?" the Goddess of Joy asked.

I tossed her the Status Plate, she caught it easily and her jaw dropped when she saw the number.

"Everything is over five thousand!" she yelled.

I smirked. "I even got the skill Transmutation from it."

"Got...skill?" Yue asked, her head tilted cutely.

"Thank you, I've got skill for days," I said smugly, but then I frowned. "I don't feel any different, usually demons that give massive stat boosts make me feel somewhat stronger when I eat them. "

Without any explanation, both Astaroth and I were consumed in a black and blue inferno.

"Holy shit!" I shouted as I felt my magical energy increase an alarming rate.

I fell to my keens as my head throbbed in pain. I could barely hear Yue's cries of worry through the pain.

Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on here!?

The pain kept increasing as time went on. Soon enough, I wasn't able to take it anymore and blacked out.

I was hit with a wave of nostalgia when I woke up.

My head was in Astaroth's lap, she ran her hand through my hair, smiling down at me. Her eyes seemed to gleam with joy as she stared at me for some reason or another.

"The hell happened?" I asked.

Her smile grew wider, almost deranged. "Something wonderful."

That's fucking ominous.

I cracked my neck as I sat up, I ran a hand through my hair, but halfway through I found something blocking my movements.

"Huh?" the confused sound escaped my lip.

I took out my Status Plate and used the reflective surface to see what was in my head. What I found, after everything I had been through, did not shock in the least.

There, practically sprouting from the natural cowlick on the right side of my head was a dark red, segmented, demonic looking horn that shined with an almost metallic polish.

I touched the tip of the horn, my finger I flinched in pain as my new appendage pricked my finger, drawing blood.

"Glorious, isn't it?" Astaroth said I noticed that her voice was a lot deeper than I remembered.

I turned to look at the goddess and I was shocked by what I saw.

Gone was the odd-looking little girl that barely came up to my waist in height. Now Astaroth was tall enough that she came up to my chest, her figure went from petite little girl to a voluptuous woman about my biological age. Her snow white hair had grown to her ankles, her pointed ears stuck out as usual. Her horns had grown, looking similar to the one I had, but her horns were hard to see as they were engulfed by blackish blue flames. She wore a black and blue strapless dress that had slits which revealed her legs and her large bust. Her hands and forearms seemed to be covered by a pair of silky blackish blue gloves that had sharp claw-like fingers, but it looked like they were a part of her skin. A pair of black high-heeled shoes were seen underneath her dress, showing off much of her slender legs. In addition, two large black angel wings were attached to the waist while another pair of wings were on her back, making her look like a fallen archangel. Finally, her tail had changed, it was long blue and black arrow-pointed made of black vertebrae appeared behind her from the dress, almost like a succubus' tail.

Her eyes were what really caught my attention, gone was the soft blue that seemed somewhat innocent. Now, her eyes were a pale icy blue with cross-shaped pupils.

"Cat got your tongue?" Astaroth asked in a seductive manner.

"Uh, kind of," I said dumbly as her glowing eyes peered into mine. "So, this your true form or something?"

"Yes," she said as she spread her wings out. "That jump in power you had gave me enough strength the finally revert back to my former self."

"So, you have your divine power back?" I asked, hope surged inside me. "Can you teleport us out or something?"

"If I were able to do that, I would have done it when you broke my seal. Whoever made this place designed it with the purpose of blocking out all divine energy, it's beyond even my power," Astaroth said. "And don't have my former power back just yet, we're getting close though."

"Fuck, guess I was hoping for too much there." I shrugged. "Well, so much for the easy way out."

I felt Astaroth's arms wrap around my head as she pushed my face in between her large breasts.

"Um, Astaroth, what are you doing?" I asked as my head was embraced with pleasing softness.

"This your punishment for 'flat chest' and 'loli' jokes," she stated in a teasing manner.

I shrugged and enjoyed marshmallow heaven. "Well, I accept my punishment in full."

"Ehem!" Yue very loudly cleared her throat, getting our attention.

"Ah, sorry Yue," I said, reluctantly pulling myself out of Astaroth's chest.

Silence reigned in the large room, I didn't really know what to say. Not because of the situation, but because I didn't really know what to say strike up a conversation with a vampire trapped in isolation for hundreds of years.

Luckily, the decision was taken out of my hands as the vampire did for me.

"Why did that horn grow out of your head, Zachary?" the vampire asked.

I turned to our resident goddess. "Astaroth, an explanation if you would kindly."

Astaroth had a very pleased smile on her face. "I was waiting for this to happen for a while now, it's about time your body started adapting to my power. Right now, you even have my ability to produce my brand of fire."

I took out my Status Plate and went over the skills again, Divine Flames…#420YOLOBLAZINGSWAG!

I blinked. "So let me get this straight, the contract I made with you acts like some sort of siphon that mutates my body the more power you regain."

She smirked. "Smart man," Astaroth capped my face between her hands, she stared deeply into my eyes. "You're going to be one very handsome Devil when the transformation is complete."

"Wait, _Devil_?" both Yue and I asked with disbelieving expressions.

Astaroth gave us a smug smile. "Who do you think created the Devils in the first place?"

My jaw dropped. Fucking mind blown! "So that guy who you were contracted to in the past, Samael, was the _original_ Devil?"

"One hundred points for Gryffindor." the goddess said.

"Fuck Gryffindor, Hufflepuff represent!" I exclaimed grinning like an idiot.

Well, time for the next elephant in the room. I turned to Yue.

"Uh, so, Yue, you're give or take three hundred years old," I stated out of the blue.

Welp, if she's anything like Astaroth, she'll rip my heart out because I mentioned her age. This'll be fun!

Yue just stared at me. "...Breach of etiquette."

Astaroth snorted. "Try getting double standards through this guy's thick head, even ripping his heart out won't teach him a lesson."

I smirked. "Fuck _all_ of that double standard bullshit."

Yue sent me a deadpanned look. "Zachary is a pervert and mean."

I rolled my eyes and smiled. "You're goddamn right I am. Next question, why do you look like a twelve-year-old little girl?"

"Ah, malnutrition," she said. "Usually a vampire would just shrivel up and die without blood for a long period of time, but thanks to my Auto Regeneration, the lack of blood took years to affect my body, and instead of shoveling up, I ended up like this when you found me."

"So, you'll go back to your former self if you drink enough of my blood?" I asked.

Yue gave me a nod, drool escaped the side of her mouth as I mentioned my blood.

"Then as far as I care, drink away!" I exclaimed grinning, I don't want to have to deal with _another_ obsessive loli. "Hell, I'll shout 'chug' like some college freshmen while you drink, but not right now, we have shit to do."

I walked over to the scorpion and ripped off a large portion of its shell. That should have been a lot harder than how I made it look, my stats are bullshit right now.

"Zachary, what are you doing?" Astaroth asked.

"Probably something dumb, but I want to do it anyway," I said snapping my fingers, activating my Phantasmal Symphony skill. It was some random sad anime song I heard a while back, I didn't really enough to pick something cheerful. "The shell of this thing was able to absorb magic in order to strengthen its defenses, it gave me an idea."

Using my Transmutation skill boosted by Phantasmal Symphony, I made a large hole in the ground and melted the Shell down into a substance sort of like mercury.

"So, Yue, while I'm doing this, what's your story, like the full story?" I asked, I wanted some conversation while I tried doing this.

Yue's eyes glazed over, almost like a faraway look. I was going to apologize for most likely bringing up some particularly bad memories when she spoke.

Her voice was soft, somber, she seemed as if she was in a trance, not even registering that we were there as she told her story.

Yue was twelve years old when her Auto Regenerate power and her ability to directly control magic were forced to activate. An ambush by unknown assailants had almost cost her her life. Should have ended in her death. A silver spear pierced her heart, but she did not die. Did not turn to ash. It hurt, of course, but as soon as her fully armored attacker had pulled the spear out of her body, the wound had closed almost immediately. All but disappeared. Like a bad dream. The enemies ran like hell after that.

During the battle, she was put in charge of leading troops while her Uncle oversaw the strategies and gave out orders.

She told me that her battle of those days were like a blur, nothing but fighting over and over again. It was an endless sea of bodies and blood.

I could practically see the scene in my mind, a lonely girl, tears streaming down her face as she stood in the middle of a battlefield, covered in blood. Fallen foes and allies lying dead around her.

After that, the Vampires put her on a pedestal. They had a savior. They had a monster.

Some called her a god, others scorned her as a demonic spirit. She was seventeen was she was made the queen. The higher ups of her society decided she would be the strong queen they needed to show the rest of the world that the Vampires were not to be trifled with. But secretly, she was feared as a dark goddess, the tempest of the battlefield, Reaper of Enemies and Allies alike. She learned later that that view was what her Uncle preferred to spread. Primarily amongst her people.

Everything was going fine, the wars were in their favor. Humans pushed back to the borders, the Devils sought a peace treaty.

That was when her Uncle approached her. He said that they needed something that would show the world that the Vampires were to be feared and awed. He asked her to enter the Orcus Dungeon, turns out he discovered a hidden dungeon beneath what many knew as the 'Orcus Dungeon'. Supposedly, there was a vast treasury in the fiftieth floor, and she was tasked with retrieving it.

She was ecstatic that she could help her people in another way than just being a tempest on the battlefield.

Blinded by trust, she ventured forth, losing a few comrades along the way. The beasts were strong, sure, but even they could not end her life. Neither poison nor brute force could stop her. She led from the front, as she had learned on the battlefields. When they reached this 'treasury' several of the others had fallen. Using a teleportation circle, a lost Synergist art, even amongst her people her Uncle was summoned.

Then she was betrayed. Yue was overwhelmed with emotion, her retainers turned on her and her Uncle informed her that she wasn't needed any longer. As far as he was concerned Yue was just a disturbance for the peace between the Vampires and Devils. He explained that she was a blight and a curse on him and his people.

But now, she wasn't useful to him anymore.

Yue didn't fight back as they ripped her off the remainder of her clothes, she didn't resist when they used magic to trap her in stone. She just stood there too shocked to even make a sound.

After everything was said and done, she pleaded in the dark as their footsteps echoed. She cursed and threatened them to let her out. Then she started pleading again, praying to any god she could think of.

At first, she prayed for freedom, then she prayed for her own death.

After her story was finished, I stared at her in horror at the things she had been through. I had been through some shit in this hellhole, but fucking ducks she had been through more than I could _ever_ handle.

"U-Um, do you want a hug?" I asked hesitantly.

"Very much so, yes," she said somberly, holding her arms out to me.

I hugged to the poor girl, she never deserved any of what she got. Me? I'm kind of an asshole, I'm pretty sure I deserved _some_ of the crap I had been through. But Yue, all she wanted to do was help her people, and she was stabbed in the back for it in the end.

A certain thought came to mind.

I knew just how off my rocker I was, but Yue, she was definitely worse off mentally, and Astaroth, I didn't ask her anything out of respect. I still no clue why she even locked up here, I honestly didn't care what kind of disaster I let loose on the world when we get out.

As long as I got what I wanted, the world could burn for all I care.

I examined my group. A demonic goddess, an immortal vampire, and me, some kind of abomination that can't even be called human at this point.

It was the start of a bad joke, and I knew, in some shape or form, I'd just end up being the punchline all over again. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

* * *

After a little while, I finished my little project.

Everything went well, too well. Hell, turns out Transmutation had so many sub-skills it was mind-boggling. I could change innate properties of materials, fuse different minerals together. Hell, just like when I turned the shell into a liquid without heating to a melting point, I could turn things into other states of matter. With this kind versatility combined with my support skill buffs as a Bard, I could change various ores into different rubbers I could use.

I was practically a walking forge and hammer. No, I am a fucking factory on legs.

With an hour of hard work and a silly little idea, I was able to make these puppies.

On my arms and legs were was futuristic looking armor that was black and red in color. On my arms, the armor went up to my shoulders and on my legs, it went half way up my thighs, there were blade-like structures on the sides of my forearms and halfway up my calves.

I took a deep breath and charged my magical energy through the armor red glowing lines running across it. Concentrated black and red mana expelled out of the blade-like structures creating blades made of pure magical energy.

I grinned and channeled the energy to my hands, making long claws made of mana appear over my fingers.

I looked at my new weapon in glee. "I am going to fucking _love_ this!"

Yue looked at the weaponized armor in awe and curiosity. "Zachary, what is that?"

"These glorious weapons of mass destruction are based on something called Positron Blades from a game I use to play called Anarchy Reigns," I explained as I gave the blades and claws a few test swings. "I used Transmutation to change the property of the shell from 'absorb mana to strengthen defense' to 'absorb mana and expel it at certain areas' kind of like an engine expelling fumes, but concentrated enough to form blades. I call them Magitech Blades. What do you two think?"

Astaroth gave the Magitech Blades a curious look.

"Are you sure that you're able to use those effectively?" the goddess asked. "I mean you did only just make them, not to mention that you have _no_ experience in any martial arts at all."

I waved her off. "Don't worry, I watched enough anime and kung fu movies that this can't _possibly_ backfire in my face."

I jumped off the ground trying to do the Hurricane Kick from Street Fighter. Unfortunately, I fucked up the jump, went four meters backwards, and landed horribly on my side.

 _Crack!_

"Ow, my hip!" I yelled in pain.

Astaroth smirked. "You were right, it backfired on your hip instead."

Yue patted my head as my hip fixed itself. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get better soon."

I hung my head. "Dammit Yue, I tried once, I failed, and I'm going to quit forever, now let me feel ashamed like a normal person!"

We all agreed to let Yue be the one to have the Magitech Blades.

 **Chapter End.**

 **Well, I hope you'll enjoy the things my demented brain comes up with, that and the changes to Yue and the lore. No, Yue is not going to be a loli for long.**

 **Omake: Meta Ass Fuckboi!**

Welp, this fucked beyond ALL retardation!

After some shenanigans, Astaroth, Yue, and myself all went to the next room where we found a magical recording of Yue's uncle.

Now, this would be fine if he was taunting us or some shit but turns out, the fucker did all of the _horrible_ shit he did to Yue in order to keep her _safe_ from the Mad God Ehito, AKA, the fucking fucker who summoned my classmates and me.

"This is so fucking retarded," I said right then and there getting everyone's attention. "If you were trying to keep her safe, then why not just tell her while you were in the dungeon dammit!? You didn't even need to imprison her! You could have just told her to stay here, given her a lifetime supply of junk food, and Skyrim, and she'd be fine for the rest of eternity!"

I stared at Yue, her eyes twitching, her face was the definition of fury.

Astaroth and I looked worriedly.

"Yue," I called out. "Are you alright?"

Yue's neck cracked at an unnatural angle, almost as if she were possessed.

"I am going to learn Necromancy for the sole purpose of bringing him back from the dead just so I can kill him over and over again," she said with a tone colder than ice.

Fucking fuck this girl is triggered!

"Better yet," the Vampire Queen began. "When when I bring him back I'll give him immortality then lock him up the same way he did to me, then Zachary, you'll use your disgustingly overpowered abilities to set it up so that the cube he's castrates him over and over again for all of eternity!"

Astaroth cupped her chin her brows furrowed. "Wait how are you going to give him immortality?"

Yue smirked and pulled out the God Crystal from nowhere. "The same why Magus of Dream did it, demonize the fucker and shove my severed finger down his throat."

I looked at the stone with a disgusted expression. "Ugh, put that plot device away, everyone forgot about it by the time they got to Volume 3!"

"You mean like what you're probably going to do with the Transmutation skill," Astaroth said. "That and the fact the only reason you have it is to show up Canon Hajime with more creative uses than fucking guns."

"Please, Astaroth," I said while banging the God Crystal against a wall in a vain attempt to break it. "I have much more class than that Overly Edgy Chuunibyou Fuckboi, if he wanted guns for everything, he could have at least had the decency to rip off RWBY. Let's be real here, his guns should have been fucking useless after the demon scorpion was fucking railgun proof."

 **With Canon Hajime after he and his harem went back to his original world.**

Hajime was curled in the fetal position up in the corner.

"I'm not edgy, I'm not a chuunibyou, I'm not a Fuckboi, my guns are cool," I said over and over again in a mantra as a mini rain cloud was above him.

The girls watched in muted shocked, unsure of what to do.

"Uh, what do we do?" Shia asked.

"I've got an idea!" Kaori exclaimed as she took out a random volume of Berserk. "Here you go Hajime, this is a really cool dark fantasy manga I've been reading lately."

His otaku instincts were on full throttle as he snatched the manga out of her hands, his thirst for EDGE not yet quenched.

The girls left the room seeing that Hajime had finally calmed down.

Tio rolled her shoulders. "Welp, that was solved rather quickly."

"Wait!" Shizuku exclaimed. "I read that manga with you, which volume did you give him?"

Kaori furrowed her brows in through. "I think It was the one were-"

"GRIFFITH!" Hajime's shout could be heard throughout the house.

 _Clang!_

"...The...Eclipse...happens." Kaori droned on as her smile strained.

"Great," Yue deadpanned. "We're back to square one."

 **Back with the professional Meme Lord.**

Astaroth looked at me with unamused eyes. "You mean the same class that was the reason this fanfiction was made."

I raised my hands in surrender. "Hey, if not Dungeons & Dragons memes and sudden want to see a badass Bard solo the ten thousand plus demonic beasts that Hajime and his harem fought in canon, but do so while playing Goofy Goober Rock and have an epic lightning show, then this fanfiction would have never been made in the first place."

Yue looked between Astaroth and myself.

"This Omake sucks," she said.

 **Omake End**


	4. BYMHYSYMFFTFB (Not Canon)

**So, my boi, changed his name to Magus of Rapture. He's got five pretty entertaining stories, show my boi some love! Also, we have another fic in the Arifureta fanfiction section! That's right, we've got a holy fucking trinity! It's called Those Days Seem Several Hundred Years Ago by Musthony Stachetano, it's a one-shot and it's pretty dope as fuck, show him some love, dudes!**

 **Word of warning, go into the Arifureta with the LOWEST of expectations, there are three fics, all written by one person, and they're all horrible.**

 **That or they might be good and my inner Grammar Nazi is making me a complete cunt. Either way, don't say I didn't warn you!**

 **Now, onto the memes!**

 **Chapter Four: Before You May Have Your Sanity, You Must First Fight the Final Boss**

The next fifty floors were… how should I put this?

Ah, yes, practically a fucking acid trip!

Let's go over the absolute fuckery that happened. Starting with the fact that I rode a god damned T-REX into battle against an alraune-like creature and an army of mind-controlled raptors with the Jurassic Park theme blaring in the background.

I named the T-Rex Toriyama. I taught him how to dance to Hello! Ma Baby before we left. He was the _only_ thing in this fucking hellhole that didn't try to kill me. I miss him.

Then there was the floor where the area was practically just fire and brimstone with demons that looked like they were ripped straight out of DOOM. We rode through the carnage on death metal unicorns while I jammed out to Battlefield by Blind Guardian.

But let's not forget the floor when I walked in on a bunch of hippos burning a 50-foot tall mountain of tickle me Elmos. Then we all had one huge power metal concert where I started shredding so hard that even Astaroth told me to chill. Spoiler alert, I did not. Strangely enough, she had an especially flushed face after the concert.

Ha! Finally, I'm not the only one here with blue balls!

Yue took to the Magitech Blades like a fish to water. Well, until she tried to cast a spell and the blade on her arm grew to the size of a fucking _whale_! Armageddon Blade anyone?

Really, nothing? Am I only one here that plays Elsword?

Yeah, there were more problems with them besides my fucking horrible skills with them. I had to change them up to only activated on command which took _a lot_ of trial and error. Hell, I think we were on the same floor for a week before I finally figured out how to do it. Some changes to the shell and adding a few other ores to fix some of the other problems, soon enough, Yue was slicing things to pieces with such grace it was beautiful.

Yue had some… quirks when it came to me. We got along well, don't get me wrong but sometimes she eyed me like a lion eyes a cartoon ham, and she was rather clingy, like _really clingy_. At first, I found it kind of amusing, but then it became rather uncomfortable. But fear not, I've already had experience with another loli trying to seduce me in the past - not saying any names. Cough! - Astaroth - cough!

It was easy to resist her advances at first, but after drinking large quantities of my blood, which she considers to be the best thing she's ever tasted, she finally restored her true form.

Now Yue was no longer the, admittedly, adorable blond loli she was before. Now she was a voluptuous young woman, seemingly in her early twenties. Lolis turning into beautiful anime waifus was starting to become unsettlingly common…

Resisting her advances now was a herculean trail in it of itself. Only made worse by Astaroth encouraging the vampire and joining in on it. Yes, that's right those two are working together! Despite their rather tense first meeting, those two got along pretty well.

On one side, I didn't need to risk being literally torn to shreds in an effort to stop any cat fights that broke out. On the other hand, these two were making it their life goal to seduce me!

The blue balls was strong with me.

On another note, I was spot on with my assumption of Yue's mental state. She had quite a few screws loose, that was obvious, especially since she went into straight-up hysterical, psychotic rampages. Don't even get me _started_ on her love for torturing whatever poor demon she got her hands on.

Now, I'll be honest, after knowing Yue and Astaroth for such a long time and all of the bullshit we all had to deal with in this fucking place, they both hold a special place in my heart. I deeply care for both of them, even in a romantic sense. Now that they look like adults, I wouldn't have any problem ramming both of them into the headboard for a week straight.

Unfortunately, there are no beds. We're in a place out of some sick demented fucker's interpretation of a JRPG endgame dungeon. And I haven't had a proper bath in… months, I think?

My perception of time is just fucking _gone_ right now. If you told me I had been here for half a year, I'd probably believe you.

Besides, I'm basically immortal for the moment, so it's not like I need to do it or die a virgin.

But I'm getting off topic here. Not to mention I was still in a relationship with my hotter than hell teacher, Rin Suzune. Now that she was a kunoichi, I didn't want to have to suffer getting my dick cut off… again. Seriously, this place was hell.

Speaking of, I wonder how she's doing. How everyone's doing. I hope they're alright.

Except for Hiyama, he can jump off his own ass and die!

* * *

Rin Suzune was not alright.

It had been two months since her secret boyfriend, Hajime, died.

She had been making sure to keep her childhood friend, Aiko, company ever since it happened. Especially after the Church started paying more attention to her and her friend. Aiko's class as a Farmer was overpowered enough to single-handedly revolutionizing the agricultural standards of this world. And Rin, well, she would be the best at _any_ kind of assassination job.

The Church assigned knights to guard Aiko whenever she had to travel to another town to help grow food. This had caused some animosity between the knights and a small group of students that had decided that they were now Ai-chan's bodyguards.

The student's mistrust of the knights weren't entirely without fault. Every single night that was assigned to Aiko was oddly good-looking, too good-looking. Rin figured out that the kingdom was trying to tie down Aiko to their country. The knights were a trap.

They tried that same thing with Rin, but a quick threat to their manhood was enough to make them back off.

After all, she only had room in her heart for the silly idiot called Hajime.

She loved him, truly she did. And when she saw him disappear into the darkness, it took everything she had just to not jump down with him with some half-baked plan to get out.

She was filled with despair when the man she loved died before her eyes. Unlike Kaori, she did not believe Hajime somehow survived. She was a realist after all, the fall he took was so long that she didn't even hear a sound. She wasn't even sure he actually landed on anything before they dragged her out of the floor.

As much as she wished she could say otherwise, nothing could survive that.

Then, after they regrouped to the town of Horald so they could go back to their cabins.

Late at night, she saw Daisuke Hiyama sneak out of his cabin and go into town. Using her advanced skills such as Stealth and Presence Concealment, she followed him.

He went to the least populated corner of the town, the local park to be precise. No one would be there at this time of night.

Daisuke sat in front of a tree in the fetal position, seemingly rather depressed. Rin herself was hiding in the tree.

While Rin didn't have a very high opinion of Daisuke, he always attempts to pick on Hajime after all. Perhaps he feels remorse for what happened to his fellow classmate. There may be hope for the boy yet.

"Hahaha," he began laughing hysterically. "I-It's not my fault! For a small fry like that bastard… h-he got carried away… i-it was divine punishment. I'm not wrong… it was Shirasaki sake, a-all for her sake. Now, that little shit isn't a concern anymore. I'm not in the wrong here. Hahahaha!"

What?

Rin, must not have heard that correctly. What in the actual _fuck_ did he just say?

Hiyama began explaining out loud to himself his plan in a vain attempt to justify himself.

The fireball that veered off course and hit Hajime was cast by Hiyama. It was timed very carefully during the chaotic barrage against the Behemoth, no one would be able to figure out who cast what in the chaos. He chose the fireball spell because his aptitude was wind. There would be no evidence or suspicion. He told all of this to himself as he let out a dark laugh.

And the kicker of all of this, the reason why he did such a horrible thing. He saw Kaori go into Hajime's cabin the night before they went into the dungeon and killed him out of jealousy.

If anyone saw the sheer coldness in Rin's eyes, they'd have thought Death itself had come for them.

Before she could act on this information, another person called out to Hiyama. Another student.

Eri Nakamura. She was a calm, quiet girl in Rin's class, one of the top students too.

What Rin saw transpire between Daisuke and Eri shook her to the core.

Eri gave a hearty laugh at what Daisuke had done. Hell, she _approved_ of it. Congratulating him and eating it all up like it was some kind of demented comedy.

She blackmailed him, promising him Kaori as long as he did what she said. Hiyama had no choice but to agree to Eri's terms.

Never in her life had Rin been filed with such disgust for another person than today.

Without either of them knowing it, Rin had the blades of her fuuma shurikens just behind their necks. The two of them still had no idea that Rin was there, Presence Concealment was a very overpowered ability.

The two before her, as far as she was considered, were no longer her students. They were treacherous snakes that needed to be put down.

Just one swipe of her blades and the deed would be done.

But a thought came to mind. What if, and this was a _very_ big if, mind you, Hajime was still, in fact, alive, and doing his damnedest to fight his way back up? After all, they had only seen him fall and there was no way to confirm or deny his actual death.

It was the same damned delusion that Kaori had.

Rin came from a long line of assassins back in their old world, tainted in the art of murder for nearly her whole life. Her family was murdered by her father's best friend because he was climbing up the political ladder slower than her father was. She lost her family when she was fifteen. While they were traveling from the Caribbean back to Japan their planned crashed. Remarkably there were a few survivors, herself included.

Police reports later revealed that there was foul play involved. Rin herself looked over the names of the passengers that were in the plane, as it turned out a few people from her father's friend's political group were in there too, as well as other political rivals.

This all pointed to her father's friend.

Her suspicions were proven right when she found certain files in the bastard's official detailing the flight dates of her family and other political targets he had.

It took three years, quite a bit of political bullshit, and a lot of bodies, but she finally did it.

The bastard was dead, wasn't even that hard once she became his secretary for a few days. One poisoned cup of tea and that was it.

She thoroughly enjoyed the look of horror and despair on his face when he, in his last agony-filled moments, finally realized that she knew he killed her family. She savored his despair like fine wine.

Rin knew that she was a twisted individual, it came with the territory of being an assassin after all.

Rin removed her blades from the unaware students' necks.

Under her mask, a twisted, demented grin made its way onto her face.

If Hajime was still alive, who was she to take away vengeance from him?

Without Eri and Hiyama realizing that their lives could have been ended right then and there. Rin left, she would need to decide at what point to give up on Hajime and kill the two herself but that could wait. Right now she at least had to let Aiko know about this.

* * *

I let out a deep breath as I looked at the large set of double doors in front of us.

Astaroth and Yue weren't the only ones that had their appearance changed. As Astroth's and my power grew, my body mutated further. The red tattoos-like veins faded away and black markings were littered around my body, most notably near my heart, where the proof of the Contract was carved into. I grew another horn on my head giving me a complete set of edgy devil horns.

"Floor one hundred," Astaroth said. "Whatever's behind this door seems extremely strong. Seems like we finally made it to the end of this damned place."

"After this, we'll finally leave the dungeon," Yue said, her voice now deeper and more seductive now that her body reverted back to an adult.

"...Yeah." I nodded. "It's about fucking time too."

I took out my status plate and gave it the once-over.

Name: Hajime Nagumo

Level: ?

Age: 17 Years Old

Gender: Male

Class: Bard

Strength: 19700

Vitality: 16290

Resistance: 17500

Agility: 22570

Magic: 39540

Magic Resistance: 15990

Skills: Language Comprehension, Phantasmal Symphony [+Bardic Inspiration], Song of Rest, War Song Strike, Vicious Mockery [+The Roast] [+Arrows of Insults], Iron Stomach, Air Claws [+Hurricane Blades], Magic Manipulation [+Magic Sense] [+Magic Compression] [+Remote Manipulation], Lighting Clad [+Lightning Storm], Divine Step [+Aerodynamic] [+Flicker] [+Grand Legs], Night Vision, Distant Sight, Presence Awareness, Magic Perception, Hide Presence [+Phantom Step], Poison Resistance, Paralysis Resistance, Petrification Resistance, Panic Resistance, Vajra, Transmutation [+Mineral Appraisal] [+Precision Transmutation] [+Mineral Enquiry] [+Mineral Separation] [+Mineral Fusion] [+Replica Transmutation] [+Compression Transmutation] [+High-Speed Transmutation] [+Mineral Decomposition] [+Imagination Composition] [+Convergence Transmutation], Divine Flames, Ice Spikes [+Tundra Piercer], Heat Sense, Killing Intent, Limit Break [+Supreme Break], Flora Manipulation, Telekinesis, All Element Resistance.

Kouki, I'm sorry for calling you a hacker and OP, you're far more balanced than me.

I'm as about as balanced as the Cretaceous Period, and we all know the godly balance patch _that_ needed. Some could say it was an extinction event!

I kicked down the double doors and we walked right in.

The room was massive, empty with only pillars that dotted the area. The ground was smooth, paved even.

I could probably start up a bitchin concert here, but my gamer instincts say that large empty room with no enemies equals boss battle. All that's missing is the ominous music change.

The pillars began to glow as we passed them. It seemed like it was just for theatrics so I ignored it.

I spotted a small set of double doors at the end of the room.

"So, that might be where that Maverick guy lives." I thought out loud.

Yue explained to me that according to legends, this labyrinth was built by one of these people called Mavericks. Now instantly, my mind went to Mega Man X, but there's a time and place for everything, and now is not that time. Apparently, these Mavericks were trying to bring the end of the world and oppose this world's god.

But history is made by the victors, so I'll take that with a grain of salt. Mostly because I hate this world's god with a fiery passion.

"Possibly," Yue said.

A giant black magic circle, the very same one that appeared when the Behemoth appeared. The being that came out of it was colossal in size, easily bigger than anything we've ever faced.

Six heads attached to long, snake-like necks, each with a different glowing rune glowing on its forehead. Six pairs of glowing red eyes stared back at us menacingly.

" **RRROOOOAAAARRRGGGHHH!"** the beast resembling the Hydra from Greek mythology roared at us.

So, this is the final boss, eh?

Well, I shall do as the Bard does… AND PROVIDE THE MOST MEME-TASTIC FINAL BOSS THEME EVER!

* * *

Astaroth and Yue barely had time to blink as Zachary rushed he first at the hydra-like monster.

All they heard was the sound of his fingers snapping as Phantasmal Symphony activated and techno-colored lights started appearing throughout the room.

 **Song: Fabulous Secret Powers by Slackcircus**

Astaroth and Yue stared at Zachary, slack-jawed, not only at his lack of self-preservation and seriousness of the situation, something that they really should be used to at this point, but the absurdity that followed.

If there was something that the two of them knew, was that when Zachary was pumped, he got kind of… extremely batshit crazy.

He punched one of the heads in the face, knocking out one of its many fangs and started using it as an improv microphone.

 _And so I wake in the morning_

 _And I step outside_

 _And I take a deep breath and I get real high_

 _And I scream from the top of my lungs_

 _What's going on?_

Astaroth, after going through his memories all that time ago in the first floor they met, knew what this song was. But even knowing him for two months straight and literally being connected to each other by the soul could not prepare her for the sheer absurdity of the situation before her.

The Goddess of Joy had seen his entire life, both of them, from start to finish, but not even she knew how the man before her turned out like… _this_!

Her only possible explanation was too much memes.

Yue wasn't fairing much better. She loved Zachary and the music he made, her favorite was what he called 1940's Style Jazz. She had seen him do some of the most _insane_ things she'd ever seen in her life.

But _this_? This one took the cake... and lit it on _fire_!

The goddess and vampire deadpanned as they saw the man they both love begin to moonwalk on one of the Hydra's heads. The head he was on began to thrash around in a panic, roar pitifully in a way that suspiciously sounded like: "Oh god! Get him off of me!"

" _Is this really the guy I fell in love with?"_ The two women asked themselves.

 _And I say, hey yeah yeah, hey yeah yeah_

 _I said hey, what's going on?_

They watched as he grinned like an idiot, throwing lightning, wind, ice, and fire everywhere with reckless abandon, having the time of his life.

"Yeah, yeah it's him," they said out loud with warm smiles on their faces.

The two jumped into the fray, ready to join in on the fun.

* * *

Just like that, the final boss had fallen in the most epic meme filled way ever.

Me, the strongest Devil to ever grace Tortus, Astaroth, the Goddess of Joy, and Yue, the immortal vampire.

We did it at long last. We beat the Rabbit Hole.

The three of us walked through the double doors together. I made sure to take a bite out of the Hydra to see if I could get anything from it. I was a pretty substantial boost, but no new skills. Damn shame.

We all stood in surprise at what we saw past the doors.

 **BGM: Death's Gambit OST - A Contract**

The warmth and light I saw in the room instantly reminded me of sunlight, but we were underground, that's impossible.

I looked out, a cone-shaped structure was hung from the ceiling high above us with a bright orb hugging the cone's bottom side.

The room itself was huge, maybe about the size of a baseball stadium. The far back was completely covered by a waterfall. Water flowed out of a small opening in the ceiling and fell into a river below. I could see fish living in the river, normal fish, not aquatic monsters that I had encountered. A miniature farm was there, but nothing was being grown there at the moment.

The whole floor was covered in greenery and flooded with a sense of peacefulness.

This sense of calm was something I had been deprived of for such a long time. Every waking moment I continued to press forward without stopping. Sure, I had my shenanigans every now and then, but never a true moment of rest. How could I when damn near everything with a breath in this damned place wanted to rip me limb from limb?

So, I just stood there, taking it all in. After everything we all went through, we earned this.

"Are you alright, Zachary?" Yue asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I sighed, feeling as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

"I'm doing fine, Yue."

I noticed a house in the distance, seemed like it was carved out of the stone the walls of the room were made of. It was three stories tall and was white in color.

I began walking towards it as Astaroth and Yue followed me.

I was about to reach for the doorknob and open it when proper edicate suddenly popped into the forefront of my mind.

I should probably knock before barging in unannounced.

I mean sure, even when Yue was alive these Maverik guys were practically legends, bedtime stories you tell to kids, but when you're in a fantasy world, legends tend to hold a lot of truth to them.

Also, barging into someone's home, even if there's a strong possibility they're dead, is rude even by my standards.

I knocked on the door three times and waited.

To my shock, the knob turned, and the door opened.

He wore a grand robe of black and gold. His body was nothing more than a skeleton with long black hair, wires were hooked up to his bones and wrapped around his body in a mechanical parody of muscle fiber. His eye sockets had red glowing dots and gave him a rather intimidating presence.

I blinked a few times as I stared at what was basically a fantasy Terminator in front of me.

He did the same as I saw his head move up and down, giving me the once-over.

The… robot thing looked me right in the eyes and could practically _see_ the grin on his lipless face.

His jaw moved.

" **My name is Oscar Orcus, my guest."** the man name Oscar said. " **It's about fucking time someone got here."**

 **Chapter End**

 **Enjoy the cliffhanger! I'M E.V.I.L! Every Villain Is Lemons! Speaking of Lemons… I'm considering doing a Lemon next chapter leave your thoughts in the review, tell me what you thought of this chapter and if you want to see the train wreck that will be my very _first_ Lemon.**

 **Christ Almighty, 15 stories I haven't even written a Lemon yet. It's about time I lost all sense of dignity.**


	5. Astaroth's Lament

**So, you all may be wondering what kind of hilarious gut bust memes will be spat out today. Surprisingly, not that many.**

 **You see, after rereading this shit post for about 20 or so times, I've come to the conclusion that fucking hate what I've done with** _ **some**_ **of this story.**

 **Basically, it dumbs down to me hating that I've stuck so close to canon even though I've made some rather drastic changes to the MC of Arifureta, despite being an SI and having a much different back story aside from the whole reincarnation thing.**

 **I've so close to canon that all of the changes I've made don't matter in the slightest. It infuriates me greatly.**

 **So, for the next few chapters, we're still going to be in the dungeon for a good while. Because I rushed the absolute fuck out of it, missing ample time for character development and memes.**

 **Mostly memes. They are the DNA of the soul after all.**

 **So, for the next few chapters, I'm going to be fixing this shit.**

 **These fixes includes:**

 **The backstory of the SI. He's a respected musician, and an A student. Why the fuck does everyone in class hate his guts again? And since he's mouthy, why the fuck didn't he call out Kouki on his bullshit in class, not to mention that Pope looking motherfucker? What I'm not going to massively change the SI's back story, but I'm going to change everyone around him, mostly their relationships regarding him. Because it doesn't make sense for** _ **everyone in their mother**_ **to hate his guts. And that bullshit when he ripped off Canon!Hajime when he first met Yue? Yeah, this is an SI, and I don't** _ **ever**_ **see myself saying something like that.**

 **The second biggest change that will be in this chapter is Astaroth. I'm not removing her, the chapter is called Astaroth's Lament for fuck's sake. And I don't think she's a bad character, it's just that how can I think she's a bad character when she never** _ **had**_ **character in the first place. She was just another mouthpiece for memes. And while I love memes and shitposting, I'd rather have an overly violent, two-dimensional, tsundere bitch than a mouthpiece that doesn't mean a damn thing or does anything actually interesting. What I a doing here is giving Astaroth her own character.**

 **So, basically, the next few chapters are essentially a soft reboot of the story. Just a lot of different character interactions and quite a few retcons.**

 **Why am I not just making a new story for this instead?**

 **Because I'm a lazy fuck.**

 **Now, enjoy.**

 **Chapter Five: Astaroth's Lament**

Astaroth, The Goddess of Joy.

She was a representation of many things: art, music, culture, love…

But for the past two thousand or so years, the darkness was all Astaroth knew.

Darkness and silence.

Astaroth knew she should have seen this coming. After all, Ehitorujue's unstable mentality was obvious, but…

She wanted to believe her closest friend would never betray her trust in him.

Unfortunately, that trust was the reason she had gotten into this situation in the first place.

Her country, invaded by her trusted friend and left to ruin.

Her power, painfully ripped from her body, leaving her a shell of her former self.

Her lover, murdered right in front of her in her powerless state.

And finally, here she was, here she was, trapped in this seal in the dungeon of one of the Liberators. Well, they were called Mavericks now if she remembered correctly.

The worst part was that she knew what the fate of her people would be. The people she worked tirelessly to create in her image.

Her people, no, her children, the Devils were going to be indoctrinated into Ehitorujue's faith in order to entertain him.

And by entertaining him, she meant they were going to suffer any and all manner of twisted machinations he would contrive.

She'd seen what he'd done to the other races after all.

When he actually betrayed her, she could hardly believe what was happening. It all just happened so fast, and before she knew it, she was trapped in this silent, dark hell.

What had she done to deserve such a thing?

What horrible sin did she commit to have such suffering inflicted upon her?

Astaroth was a gentle soul, she hated conflict with all her heart. She loved the arts, she loved to see people express themselves, she loved stories of all kinds. But most of all, she loved music.

Her goal was not conquest or anything or anything remotely grand in nature.

All she wanted to do was spread the arts throughout the world, to help cultures evolve.

Nothing else, nothing more. And if the other races didn't want their help, then so be it. She would not force her will on anyone.

"So… why?" The soft voice left her lips.

What did she do to deserve this?

Honestly, she did nothing to deserve this.

Now, here she was, trapped in this dark, silent, abyss forever.

Eventually, the darkness, the everlasting silence, it drove her insane. Even to a being such as her, madness could grip and consume her mind.

But like all things, madness did not last forever.

Her sanity would come back sooner or later, then she'd ask herself the same question "Why?", then she'd go mad once again.

It continued like that for a very, very long time.

Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why? Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? _Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?_ _**Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?**_

 _ **W̴̡̩͕͚̣̲̠̮̫̠̋̅͗̀W̵̡̧̱̦̲̫̤̤͙̉͋W̶͔͍͕͖͔̉͗̈́͋͒̈́͑͑͊̓̌͜W̸̟̔͊̿͆Ẅ̴̞̹͚̟̣̝̘̫͍́̔̑̑̈̇̾̀̔͜͝Ẃ̶̧̟͙̖̣̻̰̗̙̲̑͘Ẇ̴̨͔͕͖̪̣̠̮̠͚̪͑͆̿̕H̶̛̜͓̤̙͓͑̈́́̓̂̎͊H̵̩͈̩̥̊̎̄̽̏͊͛͘͝Ḩ̸̥̲͙͍̗̻̇͑̚H̵͚͍̳̹̿͂̈̅͐́͌͂̚͝ͅḪ̴̢̹̫̫̫̏H̵̨̜̩̯̣̐̄͒͜͠Ḩ̵̨̲̤̞̬̰̥͎̺͉̎H̷͚͍̖̹͓͉͙̠̪͓̓̿̐Ḧ̵̨̨͎̰͍̭̯̝̹͕̰̹́͛̀̊̔̌̀̌̃͘͠H̶̪͗́Ȳ̵̲̼̩̘̺̦̰̮̟̩̊Ÿ̵̳̞̘͎̝́͒̀̊͐̀̒ͅY̷̡̻̪̮̫͇̣̬̪̣̐̊̉̊̔̊̑̔̆̅̍͝Ÿ̶̞̻̣̥̫̱͙͕̬͇͎̙́̽͑Y̷̨̝̤͋̒͗̽̌͊͘!̶̡̧͙̫̜̜̪̬̼̪̈́̓͗?**_

 _Snap!_

Then it was one day she realized something.

She couldn't feel joy anymore.

In fact, she couldn't feel anything really.

No song she sang could numb the pain of betrayal and loss, no memory of happiness could heal her shattered heart, no art she created with what little power she had left could fill the hole in her hollow heart.

Astaroth, The Goddess of Joy.

The representation of many things: art, music, culture, love.

She could no longer feel anything.

Just emptiness.

Just like the abyss she was now trapped in.

One could say that in that moment of realization, the Goddess of Joy, truly died.

From then on someone strong enough to surpass the fake dungeon above, would make it to her seal on the first floor of the real dungeon.

If she was consumed by her own madness she'd kill them on the spot.

If she was sane, however, she'd give them a test.

Sure, she already knew that she could either steal one of their bodies or force a contract on them to get out.

But she would die immediately without the proper strength to brute force her way through this hell hole.

There was a _reason_ Ehitorujue chose this place as her prison after all.

While the Liberators put all of their efforts into this place to leave behind one of their Age of Gods Magic for someone worthy to find it, this dungeon was particularly good at killing people.

Too good.

Every floor was something completely different. No matter what kind of strategy you had, you would be caught off guard by _something_ unexpected the further you go down.

This place alone could bring down an entire continent's military force if they tried to complete it.

It was the perfect death trap.

Completely impossible unless you had completed all of the other dungeons and had gained their Age of Gods Magic.

Even then, your chances were _very_ slim.

So, to make up for that, she _needed_ someone to be able to use what little, pathetic power she had left, to its fullest potential to make up for it.

But so far everyone she had tested failed _horribly_. So horribly that she could actually feel frustration and anger once again.

Every new failure pushed her to the point to where she would just kill anyone who failed. Ripping out their souls and consuming them for power.

Eventually, she began to feel something else whenever she did that.

Their faces contorted with pain and agony, the despair in their eyes when the reality of the situation finally settled in.

As twisted and vile as what she now did was.

It brought her… joy.

Joy once again.

Joy at the suffering of others.

And so, for years and years, the cycle of killing those who failed her test became the one thing that brought her any form of enjoyment.

She turned the act of ripping peoples' souls out of their bodies into an art - a science almost. She became so good at manipulating souls to her every whim that she could gaze into them a see their memories. She could just as quickly rip them apart to their most basic of elements as she could put them back together.

It was through viewing the memories of her victims that she knew what Ehitorujue had done to the world.

It was stagnant, degrading, disgusting.

She was right on her assumption of what Ehitorujue had done to her people.

They were now obsessive religious lunatics that cause holy wars and crusades whenever Ehitorujue told them to.

Just to please their "God".

It sickened her to her very core. She hated it. She hated it almost as much as she hated what she herself had become.

Then for a long time, a _very_ long time.

No one came.

Most likely the strength of the mortal races had diminished throughout the centuries. No one was strong enough the make their way to the real dungeon and face her trail.

Soon enough the cycle she was ever so familiar with come back once again.

Sanity. Why? Silence. Why? Madness. Why?

Then one day, she felt someone make contact with her seal once again.

He was in a pitiful state when she brought him in.

Scared out of his mind. His arms chopped off. Wasn't even wearing any armor, seemed more like a school uniform.

He may have had height on his side, a good six feet on him, probably six foot two, but he looked really young, seventeen years old at most.

Hmmm, how comical, it seems as if an unlucky soul, nowhere near powerful enough to brave the dangers that lurked, made its way to her den.

And how "fortunate" of him to make it all the way to her.

"Uh..." the young man stared at the stumps where his arms used to be. "Yeah, this still really fucking hurts. Owch."

His brown eyes meet her's for the first time.

"H-Hey, you… uh… you wouldn't happen to have any Neosporin, would you?"

How interesting, Astaroth had rarely ever encountered this kind of person before.

He made light of his pitiful circumstances. The forced smile on his face struggled to remain as tears from the sheer pain coursing through his fell from his eyes.

A jokester whose jokes now fail him.

Truly, it was rather pitiful.

Fortunately, for him, he did somewhat amuse her.

But as much as she loved the suffering of others, she was anything but a bad host.

Astaroth snapped her fingers.

"Huh?" The young man stared at his stumps with wide eyes. "The pain… it's gone?"

"I haven't the slightest clue what this 'Neosporin' is, but I assume this will suffice?"

He nodded. "Thank you very much. Quick question. Am I out of the dungeon? Please tell me I'm out of the dungeon."

She had to actively suppress her smirk. "You are not out of the dungeon."

He let out a long groan of frustration. "Somebody end my fucking suffering already."

This time she couldn't help but smirk.

Oh that sweet summer child, if he failed her test like so many before him, then his suffering was only _just_ the beginning.

It had been so long since her last visitor, she wanted to draw it out for as long as she could, really get a chance to… savor it.

"So, demon loli, huh?"

Astaroth frowned at that. She forgot that having her former power ripped right from her very being reduced her once mature and stunning form to that of a small child.

How irritating.

"Let's see, you also seem to be stuck here… your about 3000 years old or something, aren't you?"

"Assuming the age of a lady? How rude."

He gave her a bland look. "Even in another world, double standards are a thing. Will my never-ending rollercoaster of bullshit ever end?"

Another world?

How intriguing. It seemed like Ehitorujue had been plotting something quite nefarious if he was willing to even involve other worlds into his cruel devices.

"How did you end up here, young man?"

"Ah, that, well, it's a long story. I'd have to start all the way from the beginning."

"Believe me, I have nothing but time on my hands."

He shrugged. "Well, alright, fair warning though, it's kind of ridiculous."

Astaroth almost scoffed at that, after everything she had been through, she was barely phased by anything.

How ridiculous could it be?

* * *

"And that's what happened." He finished.

She was wrong.

Very, _very_ , wrong.

It was extremely ridiculous. More so than anything she'd heard or seen!

"So, let me get this straight." Astaroth's, high pitched voice began in disbelief. "You're from another world, and a reincarnation after you got killed by a falling piano?"

"Yes," he answered. "And I have bested the monsters known as pianos which have murdered me so so unjustly!"

"Your class was summoned to this world to help fight off the Devils and win this world's current war?"

"This is correct,"

"And just earlier, one of your classmates launched a fireball at you, which sent you down here?"

"I swear I'm going to kill that bastard if I ever get out of here alive!"

"And after you survived the fall you got both of your arms cut off by a demonic bear monster with wind claw abilities, and just before I pulled you into this seal you were about to your jugular ripped out by some electric wolf thing."

The boy gave a somber look at the stumps that used to be his arms.

"Eyup," He said emotionlessly.

Astaroth gave him a slightly pitiful look. "You have one of the greatest ongoing strings of misfortune I have ever hear of."

He smirked. "But you have heard of it."

While his story was rather on the odd spectrum of things, it was about time she made him take her test. She had some hope for him, he did say his class was a Bard after all. The _only_ Bard she's encountered throughout her entire time here.

"I can save you." Astaroth stated.

She knew she had him right where she wanted when his head shot up, his eyes wide and hopeful.

Oh, how she'd love to fill those eyes with despair.

"I can give you your arms back," she said. "I can make you strong enough to kill anything in this dungeon."

She did have enough power to murder mostly anything in this dungeon easily, the sheer amount of souls she had consumed wasn't for nothing after all. But it was up to him to get stronger, to gain more skill with the new abilities he would gain from the contract.

If he could manage that, they were both golden.

"What's the point?" the boy sighed and hung his head.

Astaroth blinked. This was...an unexpected turn. Almost every time, without fail, the moment the words "more power" left her mouth, they'd immediately jump blindly at the chance.

If it wasn't that, they'd at least ask what the catch was first.

"You're a demon right?" he asked.

A demon?

Oh goodness, was he confusing her for the kind of demon that tricked people into unfair contracts and rip out their souls?

...To be fair, she did make people countless take her test and rip their souls out when they failed.

But her test was fair gods dammit!

All they had to do was play any musical instrument somewhat decently and they'd pass! Was that unfair!?

Hell no!

Yet somehow, without fail, everyone who took it knew jack shit about music.

Did Ehitorujue go so far to wipe out her influence that he erased as much musical culture as he could from the world!?

Her eye twitched as she realized what Ehitorujue had been actually doing.

Those adventurers who had "stumbled" their way into her seal were all sent by Ehitorujue.

They were a message.

That bastard knew that music was her favorite form of expression.

To deprive the world of evolving culture.

To stop almost all forms of advancing expression.

He was saying that she meant nothing. That he removed her from the world - _his_ world, completely.

The realization of this made her seethe with pure hatred.

If her self control was any weaker, then she would have taken out all of her rage out on the boy in front of her.

Astaroth gave him a strained smile. "I'm a goddess."

"A...demon goddess?"

"Not originally."

Her time in this place had mutated her power into this...vile state.

"My apologies, but you're sealed here for a reason,"

"Oh, good. Tell me what that reason is," Astaroth rolled her eyes. "Clearly it can't be a bad one, because I'm 'sealed here' and for no other reason, right?"

"Girl, you're sealed here, this dungeon of pain, despair, and most of all, bullshit betrayals. What else am I supposed to think?"

"Think deeper," Astaroth prompted. "The key is _whose_ feelings those are."

"Oh…" he had a rather guilty expression on his face as he trailed off. "I'm guessing I hit pretty close to home."

She deadpanned. "You've crushed my home with all the subtlety and grace of a meteor."

"Oof, that bad, I see."

"Now, do you want my help or not?" She was beginning to lose her patience.

"I am in need of assistance, yes. I would very much like to come out of this alive."

"Your survival depends on _you._ "

"...I do not like my odds."

"Good that you're honest. The last worm who wanted power from me definitely wasn't," Astaroth quipped.

"And what did you do to them?"

"I slowly and painful ripped their soul out and watched it shrivel up into nothingness as I drained it of what little power it had left."

A very audible gulp echoed through the black void. "Oh...fun."

"It was," she added all too quickly.

"Well, fuck, might as well get this over with. So, what's the test?" He asked.

Astaroth's smile widened, she had high hopes for this one.

"How eager of you, but first, we're going to have to go through some minor formalities, a contract if you will."

"Oh boy, a contract, how fun." He deadpanned.

"Yes, it is."

"Okay, stop _that._ You sound like the loli version of Mr. Popo."

Her smile widened even further. "I know not what this 'Mr. Popo' is, but it sounds greatly amusing."

He sighed. "So, what does this contract entail if you don't mind me asking?"

"You will have my full power at your disposal and will have yours. You do not have permission to die unless the contract is fulfilled, or I wish to grant you death personally. You will belong to me, body, mind, and soul. And I will belong to you all the same. You are not a slave. You are not a puppet. None of those things will ever grant me what I wish. You are my equal. This contract is formed using the concept of 'Trust' as such, it's power will keep us from lying to each other."

There was a long pause between the two.

"I see." He said curtly. "Is that all?"

The goddess nodded. "Do you accept these terms?"

"...Yes."

"Then tell me your name."

"Hajime Nagumo," he said.

Astaroth frowned.

That wasn't his name. Well, his _true_ _name_.

Every being in existence had _one_ true name. In a sense, you could say that a True Name was the core of a soul. It was a being's existence.

She'd have known if he lied about his name. A few people have tried that to...messy results. But it sounded like he truly believed his name was Hajime Nagumo.

But if his the name "Hajime Nagumo" was his True Name, then the contract would have already been signed.

How peculiar.

Perhaps it was because he was also a reincarnation?

"No, your _real name_."

He blinked, pausing for a few seconds.

"My name is...Zachary Mohammed."

The grin that nearly split Astaroth's face seemed like a child-like grin at a glance, but if one took a closer look as Zachary now did, they would see that it was crooked, twisted.

"My name is Astaroth."

"And I'm regretting my decision already, a new record."

Her grin settled into a cruel smile, waving her finger disapprovingly. "Up up up, no backing out now."

She snapped her fingers and in a burst of dark blue and black flames, many musical instruments appeared around them.

To her delight, Zachary only seemed slightly taken aback instead of completely confounded like everyone else at the sight of the instruments.

"Pick one."

Zachary's head moved all around as he looked at all of the instruments. Soon enough, however, he settled on one.

"I'll take the acoustic guitar over there."

Silently, Astaroth waved one of her arms, the guitar following her will, floating towards Zachary. It was a blue acoustic guitar with archaic runes around the edges.

He looked at it with a rather confused expression.

"Uh, how am I supposed to hold it?" He asked, waving his stumps around a bit.

"Ah, well, this is a little embarrassing, I forgot about the condition of your arms." The goddess admitted sheepishly. "Let me fix that for you."

She snapped her fingers once again.

Nothing happened for about a good minute.

"I-Is something going to happen or - CHRIST FLINGING KIDNEY STONES!" He shouted in panic as blue and black flames consumed his arm stumps.

Almost immediately the flames condensed and took on the form of human arms. Zachary looked at the arms in wonder, they were still made of flames but molded just like human arms.

Astaroth's smile was much more genuine was she watched her new contractor observe her divine flames with awe and wonder.

"Those are just temporary," she stated. "It's a quick solution for your predicament as of right now. You'll get the _real_ arms after you pass my test."

He nodded in understanding, sitting down with his legs crossed. He held the guitar, his left hand holding the neck up and his fingers against the fretboard, and the back of the body against his stomach and chest.

Finally, a person that actually _knew_ how to hold an instrument correctly!

She'd seen seventy people try to put on a tuba as a helmet. That was seventy people too many. The _first_ time was too many.

Zachary strummed the guitar, he frowned.

"Give me a second, I need to tune this."

Astaroth's eyes widened in absolute shock as she heard that.

For a second she felt hope. The fact that he knew about tuning was extremely promising, but she had witnessed the slow death of music through fewer and fewer people knowing that exact skill. One odd one out was not enough to get her hopes up for long.

As he turned the guitar, he glanced at her. "So, how many other people have taken this test of yours?"

"You're number one thousand and six."

Zachary grew pale at her words. "Jesus, that many people!? H-How long have you been trapped here?"

"About two or so thousand years," she confessed. "You're the first person I've seen in a dozen centuries."

His jaw dropped, in shock and horror.

"Girl, you need a hug, get over here."

Astaroth gave him a bland look. "Shut up and play."

"Uh, alrighty then."

 **Song: Roundabout by Yes**

He plucked on a string, then strummed it, plucked a few other in rapid succession, and then plucked a few more in a very similar succession.

At that point, as far as Astaroth was concerned, he'd passed the test with flying colors.

He at least knew how to play a god dammed instrument!

Just as she was about to tell him that he passed, she felt a rather unfamiliar tug at her power.

She felt her power wrap around the acoustic guitar, according to Zachary's will. It seemed to be an unconscious effort.

How strange.

Then came another series of notes, a series of notes that would lead to something that would change her life forever.

 **Song: Pause**

In a burst of blue and black flames the guitar changed into something different, it looked extremely similar to a guitar, but the body of it was solid instead of hollow and had four strings instead of six.

Both Zachary and Astaroth looked at the transform instrument in shock.

"Astaroth, was the guitar supposed to turn into a bass guitar?"

She stared at the new, unknown instrument with wonder. "A...bass guitar? That's what that is?"

"Ah, I see now, I did think it was rather odd that a lot of instruments that I knew from my world weren't presented by you when you asked me to pick one. Though I guess it's to be expected when you're in a medieval fantasy world."

"I see."

What he said got Astaroth thinking.

Another world, one with even more instruments, more music, culture, more _art_. All untouched by that bastard Ehitorujue. It made her excited, made her giddy like a child on a sugar rush.

She suppressed her smile. "What kind of sound does this...bass guitar make?"

It wasn't hollow like a regular acoustic guitar, it was completely solid. Something like that would cause the plucking of the strings to sound incredibly muted.

Zachary plucked one of the new instrument's strings.

To her great surprise, she wasn't meet with the sound of a muted pluck, but a deep rich sound which pleasantly reverberated through her ears.

"...Wow." She breathed out in awe.

"Cool, looks like I don't need an amp for it." He said excitedly.

"An...amp?" Shed repeated curiously.

"Oh, uh, an amp is a device we use in my world to amplify the sound of instruments like bass and electric guitars."

She nodded quickly, her eyes practically sparkling with excitement. "I see."

"So, do you want me to continue with this song?"

Astaroth gasped. "There's more to that song of yours?"

"Um, yeah, about eight or so minutes."

"Are there _more_ instruments from your world used in it?"

"Yes…?"

"Then please, by all means, go on for as long as you'd like!"

For Astaroth, she'd never been more excited in her life. What seemed to be another disappointment dropped into her hands was not only her best bet to get out of this hell hole but another lover of the arts like herself. Even more, he was someone who came from a completely different reality, _two_ of them if his story checked out. Who knows just what kind of music he's heard, what stories he's read, what cultures both worlds he's been to have. She had half the mind to trap him here with herself and make him tell her everything.!

For Zachary, he'd never seen someone so excited to see him play...well, anything. Sure the crazy demon loli in front of him gave him some serious slasher movie vibes. But right now, with that honest pure, innocent grin of child-like excitement? He couldn't believe this girl would hurt a fly much less painful rip out over a thousand and five souls.

"Well, let's see if you're ready the Roundabout!" he exclaimed excitedly.

 **Song: Resume**

Zachary's flame arms danced across the bass guitar diligently as its deep pleasing sound echoed through the void.

Astaroth felt another tug on power as he kept playing.

Behind Zachary, more instruments that she had never seen appeared, but along with them, humanoid beings made of flame to play them.

The boy in front of her had made a band using her power!

Incredible!

And to think this wasn't even a conscious effort either. Just how many surprises did he have for her?

"I'll be the roundabout," he began to sing. "The words will make you out 'n' out."

Well, that was another surprise. He knew how to sing!

She didn't think her smile could get any wider than it was at that moment.

"I spend the day your way,"

His voice was one of the most please sounds she'd heard in over two thousand years, she couldn't help but just be entranced.

"Call it morning driving through the sound and In and out the valley,"

Before the two knew it, they'd both lost themselves in the music.

One so unbelievably happy that she found someone like him, the only one to ever pass her test. Her only hope. She was so happy that she cried tears of joy as she watched him play. So happy that she found someone that could give her back the thing she had been deprived of for so long. Pure, honest joy.

The other was all too happy to play for this sad, lonely girl trapped in this hell hole for who knows how long. Just to make someone smile was enough for him, but he didn't mind going the extra mile just to make someone happy.

You couldn't say it was a match made in Heaven, but this place wasn't Hell either.

It was a crazy rabbit hole.

To many, it was the darkest pit of despair known to all living things.

But for some people, they could find that small ray of hope, and just maybe, that ray of hope would lead them to a better tomorrow.

 **Chapter End.**

 **As you can see, the next few chapters are going to be about character development and fixing my fuck ups.**

 **Be sure to tell me what you think of this chapter in the reviews, my bois!**


	6. A Queen's Freedom

**Yo, nerds! Ya boi is back and with some character devlopment...again. But you all eat that shit up, and I am willing to provide like the cheap sellout I am!**

 **Also, no one has been updating their Arifureta fics, seriously, our boi with the ever-changing name, this time it's Void's Record, author of** ** _Re:Arifureta - From Commonplace to the World's Strongest_** **has been on hiatus since last year, and our new boi, who also changed his name to our edge lord and savior Hajime Nagumo, author of** ** _From Common-Job Transmigrator to Demon God_** **… and a shit ton of rewrites that he all took down, hasn't updated jack shit in a while too.**

 **The worst part being that they closed their PM Boxes so I can't spam them for updates. How cruel.**

 **Well, I see now, it's up to me to save this miserable section of fics in FanFiction. I knew the day would come.**

 **Now behold, THE GAYEST OF MEMES!**

 **Enjoy.**

 **Also, I got my hands on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and I'm fucking loving it!**

 **Chapter Six: A Queen's Freedom  
**  
Her name was Aleytia, that was the only thing she had left.

The was just her, the darkness, and her prison.

Her limbs shackled to the many pillars that made up the architecture in the room, and her body from the shoulders down encased in seemingly unbreakable stone.

She didn't even have any idea how long it had been, all sense of time was lost to her.

It wasn't always like this for her.

Aleytia was a queen, ruling over the Vampire Kingdom of Avatar. She had single-handed led her homeland to prosperity through her tireless work. Through her, the people of Avatar feared no one outside their borders, no one in the world could match their might.

So, was this Hell to be her reward?

She would have preferred death. If someone asked her if she would die or choose this cruel fate, a thousand times over she would have asked for death.

But death would not come for her, it couldn't. How could it when she was immortal?

No weapon of any kind could end her life. Spells of the highest caliber could not fell her. Her time in this Hell had proven that things such as dehydration and starvation could not put her out of her misery.

She was forever fated to stare into the darkness, alone for all eternity.

The only company being her bitter memories of the past.

She was about twelve-years-old when her power activated, or more accurately was forced to activate.

An ambush by unknown assailants had almost cost her her life. It should have ended in her death. A silver spear pierced her heart, but she did not die, did not turn to ash. It hurt, of course, the agony was excruciating, but as soon as her fully armored attacker had pulled the spear out of her body, the wound had closed almost immediately. All but disappeared. Like a bad dream.

The enemies fled thereafter. It would take her longer to learn of her other 'gift'.  
Her 'Regeneration' allowed her to survive at the forefront of the battlefield.

"Nobles were meant to lead the troops from the front." Her uncle, Denreed Gardia Wesperitirio, had told her.

And since he had to oversee the strategies and give out orders from the safety of his tent, it only left her to lead the troops, uplift morale, lead the army to victory.

When human forces had encircled her and her troops, she fought like a demonic beast. Casting magic, feeding on the blood of her enemies, a vicious fight for survival.

Most of her guards had been slain by either silver or magical fire. Almost all the friends and loyal retainers she had, even the rest of her family.

End the in, she was all that was left alive. If one could even call it living.

By the time the 'Rescue Platoon' arrived, led by her uncle, Aleytia had discovered that she did not need Magic Circles or even Chants to cast her spells, she was fifteen then, or maybe fourteen, she didn't remember clearly. It had been so long.

It was a most solemn scene, a lonely vampire girl, covered in blood, standing in the middle of a battlefield, fallen foes and allies lying dead around her, observing the allies that had come to rescue her with forlornly.

That tragedy alone was too much for one person to bear, even for one as powerful as she. But the world did not believe so.

After that things changed.

She had become special to her people. A savior. A monster. Some called her a God, others a demonic spirit.

At seventeen she was put on the throne. The ministers decided a strong queen would show the rest of Tortus that the proud Vampires could not be defeated.

The masses rejoiced. They had a living God as their Queen.

But secretly she was feared as a dark goddess, the tempest of the battlefield, Reaper of Enemies and Allies alike. She learned later that that view was what her uncle preferred to spread. Primarily amongst her people.

With Aleytia at the forefront, the war was finally going in their favor. Humans had been pushed back from the borders, and the Devils had sought a peace agreement. That was when her Uncle approached her. They needed something to trade with. Something that would show all the other nations that the Vampires were to be feared and awed. Something beyond just _her_.

He smiled as he asked her to enter Orcus Dungeon. Promised her that the throne would be waiting for her once she had recovered the powerful magic stones and artifacts.

She didn't care.

Her powers would be useful. She could help her people not by being the tempest of the battlefield.

And so she delved deep into the dungeon. A small group of retainers at her side. Her uncle had discovered a hidden dungeon, beneath the one everyone knew as 'Orcus Dungeon.' She never knew how he had discovered it, didn't even care to ask, but her Uncle told her that below the fiftieth floor would be a treasury. Powerful artifacts and weapons could be found within.

Blinded by trust, she ventured forth, losing a few comrades along the way. The beasts were strong, sure, but even they could not end her life. Neither poison nor brute force could stop her.

She led from the front, as she had learned on the battlefields.

Her retainers, decided upon by her uncle, following behind, observing closely.

When they reached this 'armory' several of the others had fallen. Using a teleportation circle, a lost Synergist art, even amongst her people, her Uncle was summoned.

His familiarity with the entrance and the ease with which he opened the second door, should have been her clue. But she never expected anything.

Aleytia just felt overwhelmed, when her retainers turned on her, and her uncle informed her that she wasn't needed anymore. That she would merely be a disturbance to the peace between the Vampires and the Devils. That she was a blight to him and his people.

He was meant to be the king. Meant to rule them. Eventually even the Devils.

One of the reasons he simply didn't kill her was that she was a useful weapon, a deterrent of sorts. Not that he hadn't tried. Over and over again.

Still, Aleytia did not fight back. The betrayal weighing too heavily on her. She did not resist when they ripped off the remainder of her clothes. Did not resist when they shackled her hands to the pillars. Did not even interfere when they used magic to trap her in stone.

Only after she regained her senses did it finally dawned on her what had happened. That this was not some nightmare she would wake up from.

She pleaded, at first, with no one answering in the dark. Then raged against the shackles and the stone cutting deep into her skin, drawing blood.

She screamed at the doors. Cursed the would-be jailers, told them how she would reduce them to ashes if they did not free her. Did not let her go.  
As the years flew by, she started pleading again. Praying. To any god she could think of. First the Vampire one, then the Devil's and finally, even the human god. For freedom, at first.

...And then for death.

Until even that stopped.

Over the years the thirst and hunger clawed at her psyche, but her 'Regeneration' would not even allow her the release of death through starvation.

It did not even allow her to go mad. At least she thought so. How would she know, really?

Maybe she even had, but simply wasn't aware of it? Maybe her mind had finally had enough and she didn't even notice.

But madness did not matter. Nothing mattered. It was just her, and this Hell.

…

…

…

The former Queen of the Vampires stirred as an unfamiliar light pierced through her eyelids. For a moment, she believed it to be a hallucination, but…

"Geez, those bastards were rude," She heard a man's voice as the large doors to her prison were effortlessly kicked open, flooding light into the room. "You play _Awaken_ from _JoJo's Bizarre Adventure_ for a pair of cyclops ripping themselves out of the stone wall, and I get football punted for my trouble."

As her eyes had been in the darkness for centuries, it unused to the light. She couldn't make out who was speaking other than a blurry silhouette.

"...Who goes there?" Her voice was faint, and horse, it was the first time she had spoken in centuries.

She cursed how quiet her voice sounded, it was even below what a whisper should be. But thankfully, her fears of not being heard were proven untrue.

The man had her head, his silhouette froze as what she could only assume as surprise his head turned to face her.

"Holy shit..." His voice held a tone of awe. "I-Is that a person!?" She heard hurried his footsteps echo through the room as he approached. "Jesus Christ..." His tone changed to one of concern and shock. "W-Who the fuck does...does something like _this_ to someone!?"

She felt his hands gently hold the sides of her face. Warm, his hands were so warm. It reflected just how cold she had felt all these years.

"Hey, come on, stay with me now."

She honestly couldn't believe what was happening before her. Someone had finally made it to her prison in this Hell. She couldn't let a chance like this pass! This was probably her one and only hope.

"Please...help me." It had been too long to remember the last time she actually spoke. Her throat was parched. It was painful to speak, but she had to endure the pain, she couldn't let this chance to escape this damned darkness pass.

"That's the plan." He assured. "We're going to get you out of here."

As her eyes finally adjusted to the light she could finally make out what the man looked like.

Through her dirty golden locks, she stared at him, her gaze drinking in his appearance like someone lost in a vast desert and finally found an oasis.

He looked younger than his rather deep voice pertained, he was a tall, handsome young man. His red eyes filled with concern peered through his long, snow-white hair, on the right side of his head was a dark red, segmented, demonic looking horn that shined with an almost metallic polish. His clothes were torn up and dirty making him look like a commonplace beggar. But, she guessed it must have been because of the many hardships he'd have to pull through to reach this place. Over his shoulders, he carried a large black and blue scythe, fresh blood dripping from the blade.

She continued to stare at him in shock. His appearance finally driving home the one thing she hopped. This was real. Tears she didn't know she had fallen from her eyes as hope surged through her heart at full force. She was finally going to be free!

"...Thank you." She said through the tears.

The young man, gave her a somber, but nevertheless, easy-going smile and winked. Her savior traced his eyes over her prison of stone and chains.

"Astaroth," He called out. "Any idea how we're going to break this?"

She was confused as to who he was talking to. No one else had entered the chamber with him.

Her question was answered when his scythe burst into a mass of black and blue flames. The young man didn't seem bothered by the flames at all as they raged on his shoulder. Suddenly, the flames dissipated, and a small girl riding the young man's shoulders took its place.

The girl, Astaroth, was riding his shoulders and seemed to be just entering her teenage years. She had long snow-white hair with pointed ears sticking out of her snowy locks, and pale-blue eyes that gazed at her curiously. On her head were two blue horns that were structured the same way the young man's singular horn, but half the size. She had moon-pale skin and wore a black and blue sundress with detached sleeves. Below her neck was tied a large, white ribbon, she wore blue leggings that stopped halfway up her thighs and wore black shoes. A thin blue tail that ended in a spade tip came from under her dress.

"Hmmm, vampiric sealing magic, how nostalgic." The Astaroth muttered as she looked at the former queen. "I'm rather curious as to why they'd use such a complex sealing algorithm on one of their own."

The young man gave the girl a curious look. "She's a vampire…? Didn't they go extinct three-hundred years ago?"

The former queen let out a raspy, empty chuckle. "...That long?"

She'd been stuck in this horrid place for three-hundred years, and from the sound of things, the kingdom she worked so hard for had crumbled in her absence. She couldn't even go back for revenge. How pitiful.

The young man gave her another look of shock. "...Good Lord."

Even the little girl's eyes widened slightly. "Huh? This is different, usually, your average vampire would shrivel up and die after at least five months without any blood. But she claims to have survived three-hundred years. Alright, I was originally against freeing her, but she has caught my interest. Zachary, put me down, I'm going to look at this seal from all different angles. If I had my full power, I would have been able to brute force such a seal easily, but now I'll have to solve this puzzle the old fashioned way."

At long last, she knew both of their names, Zachary and Astaroth. The names of her saviors.

"Alright," Zachary complied, kneeling down, allowing his companion to climb down. Just before she was about to walk away, he patted her head affectionately. "You be careful now, there could be some traps in this room."

Astaroth pouted. "Stop treating me like a child!"

"You stop being adorable." Zachary smirked. "Besides, the only reason you're complaining now is it because we have company."

Astaroth glared at him without any real anger. She sighed before walking off to observe the other sides of the seal.

Zachary, for his part, leaned against the stone cube that imprisoned Aleytia, keeping her company as his companion did her part in cracking the prison.

"So, how'd you get stuck in this hell hole?" He asked.

How did she end up in such disparity? Wasn't that a painful question. As if she herself hadn't asked herself the same question over and over throughout the years. She didn't even have the will to try and stop the tears as the memories assaulted her mind once again.

"H-Hey, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He apologised, as if he'd been the cause of her tears. "It's fine really, you don't have to tell me anything."

"Vampire...special...atavistic power...regeneration..." She explained despite his apology, it was only fair he knew what events had trapped her in this Hell. "Couldn't...be...killed...silver...even de-" Her dry throat couldn't take it anymore and she ended having a coughing fit.

"Stop trying to strain yourself so much, storytime can wait." Zachary chastised. "God damn, you haven't had anything to drink or eat in three-hundred years. Alright, vampires drink blood," He held out his wrist to her. "I hope you don't mind my blood, I have no doubt it's more than a bit salty."

The former queen stared Zachary's wrist, then at his face, his concerned eyes and ever-present smile still there.

He was offering his blood to her, willing too.

As far as she was concerned, he was a saint.

Her fangs sunk into his wrist as blood, for the first time in centuries, flooded her mouth. Her eyes widened at the taste, not even trying to hide the moan of bliss she had, the former vampire queen had no idea if it was because of being sealed for so long or if it was something exclusive to him, but he tasted _heavenly_.

He let out a nervous chuckle. "Guess I pass the taste test..?"

She ignored his comment as she kept drinking what she considered liquid bliss.

In the span of a few moments, her emaciated body had become healthy, and her porcelain-white skin glowed with new vitality. Her cheeks, once gaunt, were now a rosy pink. A warm, gentle light dwelled within her crimson eyes.

She didn't know how long she kept drinking, but at some point, she realized that no one person should have this much blood. There seemed to be no end in sight, not that she was complaining...or that she could even stop herself at this point. But, alas, the subconscious need to breathe made its unwanted presence known.

Aleytia removed her fangs from Zachary's wrists and took in large breaths of air. "I'm...sorry about that."

"Geez, drank enough blood from me to kill twenty men!" He exclaimed, grinning in contrast to his dark words. "Certainly a lot more pleasant than those blood-sucking spiders in floor fifteen."

Her eyes widened. "H-How...?"

"Well, it's a long story, the short version is that I basically sold my soul to the loli devil-"

"I heard that!" Astaroth shouted from the other side of the stone cube.

"To get my arms back, now I literally can't die until my end of the bargain is fulfilled or she lets me."

The vampire queen blinked. "What?"

"Yeah, I know, it's really dumb." He sighed. "So, you can continue where you left off if you feel up to it."

Ah, yes, she still had her shameful tale to tell. But now it was made much more bearable to do now that her centuries-long hungry had been sated.

"Things like decapitation could not kill me." She explained. "I worked so hard for the land I loved, I lead wars in its name against the humans and devils that threaten to destroy it and brought pace, I was eventually made queen too." She let out a rueful laugh. "One day my _uncle_ ," She spat the word out venomously. "Asked me to take an expedition into Orcus Dungeon, explaining that there had been another dungeon underneath it, one filled with many powerful artifacts and riches at a _certain_ floor."

Zachary's eyes widened. "A-Ah, yeah, I...I think I put the pieces together. God damn, you need a hug."

Honestly, she'd very much love a hug right about now. Unfortunately, everything from her shoulders down was encased in stone. But, at the very least, she wasn't hungry anymore.

"Hey," His tone turned somber. "I wouldn't be able to say I understand just how much you've been through. But...I know what it's like getting stabbed in the back."

So, he was just like her then. Betrayed and left to rot in this Hell.

The sound of footsteps came from the left side of the cube. "I must be getting rustier than I thought," came the voice of Astaroth. "It took me much longer to decipher the algorithm than expected."

Zachary grinned. "Sweet, let's free her and get the hell out of here. This floor wore out its welcome two days ago."

Astaroth placed her finger on the cube, and to the former queen's surprise, an assortment of glowing blue lines run up and down the prison. All around her body she felt a warm sensation as if the cube itself had been heated up...But she used no incantation or magic circle to achieve such a feat.

How? She knew no one outside of herself that could do such a thing!

"I've corrupted the cracks in the algorithm with my own mana, just pour your own into where the lines are and this seal will break apart easily." Astaroth explained.

"Alright," Zachary walked a good distance back, Astaroth following him. The girl turned into a mass of black and blue flames and leapt into his arms. He swiped both of his arms to the sides horizontally, the flames transforming into what looked like...piano keys? "Let's get started."

The vampire let out a silent sigh. Zachary was a bard, wasn't he?

She didn't have anything against bards, but didn't really like them either. Bards were of the heavily religious sort, not that religion was her the black mark she had on them, it was more because they all had what amounted to be the same song. Only slight variations depending on the god the song was about. As such, bards were only really seen gospels of their respective church.

It was stagnant, dull, a whole lot of other things. One of the many reasons why only the churches accepted them.

From what she was told growing up this is how the bard class had been for millenniums. They were the voices of god.

Only the Demi-Humans of the far east actually advanced in any kind of musical culture, but that was due to the fact that they were a godless race.

Well, it didn't matter now. She could put up with constant religious songs that all sounded the same. It was better than the constant silence. Much better.  
 **  
** **Song: Lament by Myuu** **  
**  
Her eyes widened as his playing started. Already just a few seconds in and it was unlike anything she had ever heard. A somber melody found nowhere even in the darkest corners of Tortus.

Zachary's eyes were closed as his hands moved across the firey set of piano keys Astaroth had become. His fingers gracefully gliding across with practiced ease. His lips curled into a small smile as he played, he was a showman that enjoyed his own work.

As the song unlike anything she had ever heard continued, the tone of the melody shifted, but it did so gradually. It was as if someone had been plunged into despair, fighting a battle that could not be won, but slowly finding a hope that glowed brighter by the second.

What was this!? This...This work of audible beauty…? This thing that made her broken heart soar.

The former queen had been so entranced by the beautiful melody that she didn't notice the blue lines of prison glow brighter as the song continued.

 _Snap!_

But that sound had caught her attention. One of the shackles her jailers attached to her had been broken and turned into ashes.

 _Snap!_

Another one broke. But this time she bearly even noticed, her attention fully on Zachary

 _Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!_

The rest of the shackles had broken off in quick succession, but once again, she was too focused on Zachary to notice. All she could do was stare in muted amazement as he played. The music just as much his world as he was her's in that moment.

The cube now had countless cracks running through it, blue flames leaking out from them. Ashes fell from the cube like a gentle waterfall, the magic and the song eroding the seal at a gradual pace.

Little by little, she was being released from her shackles. Soon, more and more parts of her were freed, and more and more snow white skin was revealed. Her swelling chest became fully visible. Next came her waist, then her hands, her thighs, and finally the cube was fully turned to ash and she was free.

Only once she was free did the song come to an end.

She sat there, in the ashes of her former prison. Bewildered at what had actually happened.

She shakily raised up her hand to eye level, the movement of her own body feeling somewhat foreign to her.

Freedom.

What she longed for years was now her's thanks to the kindness of a stranger. The kindness from someone asked for nothing but still went out of his way to help her.

Before she knew it, he was already at her side.

Kneeling down beside her, Zachary gave her a kind smile. Taking off the blazer he wore, he wrapped it around her and picked her up in a princess carry. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

Unconsciously, she reached up, her hand holding the side of his face. He stopped his stride, his attention fully on her.

Feelings rampaged in her mind. She felt the need to say something, anything to show her gratitude, but she didn't know what she could say to show the depths of how thankful she was.

She stared into his eyes, tears streaming down her's. And, in a small and trembling, but powerful voice, she conveyed her feelings.

"Thank you." She could only hope it was enough.

Zachary's eyes widened as he stared back at her.

He smiled. "Heh, no problem. So, you never told us your name."

Her name…

Complicated feelings grew as she thought about her name.

She was Aleytia, Queen of the Vampires. But that name held such bitter memories. She wanted to start anew, with him.

With him…

That particular thought played over and over in her head.

Something stirred in her. She didn't know if it was admiration or something else, but one thing was clear.

Zachary was just like her. Someone who couldn't die, someone who could control mana directly, someone who had been betrayed and left to rot.

At that moment, she recalled what her master who was also her friend and confidante told her. She needed a partner in the future to give her kingdom an heir. However, she couldn't randomly choose a partner. Her partner should at least be just as special as her.

And after hundreds of years of being sealed, she had finally met someone who met her criteria to a T. She felt their meeting in this Hell was something fated to happen.

Her admiration had turned into obsession at an almost unhealthy level. But she cared not for what others may think. She had no clue if she would meet another person like him again.

But, to throw away the bitter memories of the past, she would need a new name.

"...Give me one." A new name for her new life. "I don't need a name from the past. I'm fine with whatever name you give me, Zachary."

He raised an eyebrow. "You want me to give you a name?" He snorted in amusement. "Oh, I am the last person you want to give that kind of power, but I'll try my best." Zachary, stared at her, his eyes narrowed in concentration. "How does...Rosana sound?"

"Rosana…?" She repeated, testing how the name sounded. "Rosana… Rosana..."

"Yeah, as you can guess, it means roses. When I first came into this room your eyes caught my attention first. Red like roses, they were beautiful."

The newly named Rosana blinked in surprise at his words. She hadn't expected him to have a reason behind picking the name. Her lips curled into a slight smile as her eyes sparkled with happiness.

"...Hmm. Then from today onwards, I will be Rosana, the name Zachary bestowed for me. Thank you."

A giggle was heard above them. "Well, aren't you two getting along swimmingly."

It was Astaroth, and she was riding Zachary's shoulders once again. The demonic looking girl smirked, staring down at her. Her amused gaze stared back at Rosana, almost as if she'd found a new toy to play with.

Rosana blinked, she had almost forgotten about her. This girl, Astaroth, seemed particularly close with Zachary.

"Zachary, is this girl your lover?" She asked bluntly.

"Yes!" Astaroth exclaimed.

"She wishes." Zachary deadpanned.

"Aw, come one, Zach, don't be like that..." The demonic looking girl pouted, playing with Zachary's hair. "Haven't I told you that you need to live a little?"

"And haven't I told you to go through puberty?" He rolled his eyes. "I've already laid down the law, Astaroth, I don't date lolis. Now, short stacks, on the other hand, that's in my strike zone."

Astaroth sighed. "You shameless pervert."

Zachary smirked. "And proud of it!"

Rosana raised an eyebrow at the interaction. It answered her question for the most part. But since her own body had deteriorated to this child-like state over the years, Zachary wouldn't see her as a romantic partner. Hopefully, drinking more of his _delicious_ blood fixed that minor issue.

...But she did have one more question.

"Why are we still here?" Honestly, she'd very much like to be anywhere other than this room now that she was free.

"Uh, I don't know, but let's get hell out of here." Zachary said.

As he took one step forward though…

 _Crash!_

The monster the crashed down was scorpion-like in nature. Nearly five meters long and possessed four arms that all ended in razor-sharp pincers. Its eight legs clacked noisily as it scuttled around. Its two stingers were poised, ready to strike and dripping with venom.

"Alright, who called in the pain in the ass sub-boss?" Zachary asked dryly.

With great irritation, Rosana pointed her hand at the monster. Her golden mana lashing around her.

"Azure Blaze." She muttered as a massive blue-white fireball, at least seven meters in diameter consumed the scorpion in its entirety. It screamed in agony as the flames melted its shell and cooked it on an open flame.

Rosana narrowed her eyes. She would not be denied her freedom any longer.

The flames died down as the monster's movements stopped.

"Okay," Zachary began. "On one hand, that was pretty anti-climactic, on the other, easy meal, I haven't had a roasted scorpion in a while. Also, Rosana, I knew you said you packing some serious heat, but god _damn_."

Astaroth lightly smacked him upside the head. "Bad Zach, what have I told you about puns."

"What have I told _you_ about trying to seduce me?"

"Oh grow up!"

"You first!"

Rosana gave a wry smile at their shenanigans. This seemed to be the start of a very amusing adventure.  
 **  
Chapter End.**


End file.
